When making apple tart, I always love mixing up the apples a little. I used granny smith green apple for the tang and royal gala red apple for the sweetness and if you want some texture, golden delicious is also a good addition to your apple tart. One of the thing that make this tart truly delicious is the Pie Dough. I especially love this unsweetened pie dough because it just adds that depth of texture and buttery goodness. And speaking of buttery, make sure you use the best butter you can find because they make tons of difference to your dough! For tips and tricks on making the Pie Dough, check out my post on "Flaky Pie Crust (Pate Brisee)"
So, give this a go, and tell me what you think!
RECIPE
Pate Brisée
Equipment: Rolling pin, 18 cm pie dish
135 g Cold Unsalted Butter -cubed
265 g Plain Flour
2 g Salt
40 g Yolks (2 yolks)
90 g (+-) Iced water
Method
1. Cut cold butter into cubes (around 15mm /1.5 cm).
2. Rub cold butter cubes with flour and salt with the tip of the fingers. The mixture should be crumbly with still some big lumps of butter in the mix.
3. Add in the yolks and mix with you hands or a fork, then gradually add in the water, reserving some of them. Mix until when you press the flour mix between your hands, they clump together into a dough. Add more liquid if the dough feels dry. You do not necessarily need all the liquid. Depending on the humidity on the day, amount of liquid required varies. The dough should just come together into a slightly stiff and cold dough and shouldn't feel too wet or too dry.
4. Transfer the dough on to a floured bench and gently knead until they just come together. (Do not over knead, the dough should still have bits of butter pieces visible in them).
5. Cut the dough in to 4 parts, stack them on top of one another and gently press down. Repeat this process 2 more times (3 times in total) If dough becomes too soft, wrap and leave it fridge to cool for at least 2 hours or overnight before proceeding. This process gives a very flaky result. It is very similar to the concept of lamination.
6. When the pastry have chilled, bring them out to room temperature until soft enough to roll.
7. Roll the pasty to roughly about 0.5 cm thick ensuring that the pastry is rolled out as round as possible. Trim off the excess but leaving roughly about 5-7 cm excess hanging on the edges. The trims can be reused.
8. Transfer the trimmed pastry discs over a lightly greased tart ring sitting on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Gently lift the dough and push inwards until they sit at the bottom of the base. Make sure you push the edges at the base so that the base are not rounded on the sides. Smooth out the sides. At this stage you will have some excess pastry hanging around the edges. If you have parts that is shorter, simple lift the dough up gently and adjust.
9. Place a baking paper into the tart ring on top of the lined pie dough, fill with baking beans/rice and par-bake until very light brown in color on the sides. Remove the pastry from the oven, take out the baking beans/rice and paper and bake for 10 minutes or so until the center is light brown in color. Remove the tart shell from the oven, and while the pastry is still hot, using a serrated knife, trim off the excess and leave aside to cool until ready to use.
Almond Filling
Unsalted Butter 110 g
Almond meal 100 g
Icing Sugar 110 g
Eggs 140 g
Corn flour 25 g
Full cream 100 g
Royal Gala Red Apple 2
Granny Smith Green apple 1
Butter 30 g
Castor Sugar 30 g
Cinnamon 1 Tablespoon
1. Place soften unsalted butter and icing sugar in a stand mixer bowl with a paddle attachment and cream until smooth. Do not incorporate too much air.
2. Mix in almond meal and corn flour then gradually mix in the eggs.
3. Add the cream last.
4. Set the filling aside until ready to use.
5. Meanwhile, peel the apples and cut them in to thick chunks. Place butter and sugar into a non stick pan and bring to a light brown caramel. Toss the apple chunks in to the butter mix for 2 minutes. Do not over cook the apples, you do not want them to be soft, they should still be crunchy.
6. Leave to cool.
Note: The almond filling is quite runny. If you are using it right after you made it, you can ladle the mix in. If you are saving it for the next day, the mix will harden slightly, to fill the hardened filling in to the tart, simple transfer the mix in to a pastry bag and pipe in to the tart instead.
Almond crumble
Cold unsalted butter 65 g
Brown Sugar 35 g
Plain Flour 75 g
Almond meal 35 g
1. Place cold but soft butter, brown sugar and almond meal in a stand mixer bowl with a paddle attachment and mix until combined. Do not over mix, you do not want the butter to become too soft and aerated.
2. Add in the flour and mix until just combined and resembles big chunks of crumbs. Do not over mix. If you happen to over mix the dough, refer to below video on how to fix it.
3. Leave the crumble aside until ready to use.
Assembly
1. Make tart pastry and leave to cool.
2. Place butter and sugar, cinnamon and cook to caramel in a non stick frying pan and toss the sliced apple into the sauce. Do not over cook the apple. The apple should still be hard. Leave the apples to cool and strain.
3. Ladle or pipe the almond filling half way from the bottom of the cooled tart shell, top with the caramel coated apples, pipe or ladle more of the almond mix on top of the apples then topped with another payer of slice apples. The mix should be filled up all the way up to the top.
4. Scatter the almond crumble on top to fully cover the top and bake in the oven at 180°C for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until firm to the touch, is not wobbly and the top are deep golden brown in color.
5. Remove tart from the oven, gently push the edges of the tart inwards while still warm making sure that there are no excess hanging off the sides of the rings. This is to ensure that when the tart sets, it is easier to remove the ring without excess pastry setting and clinging on to the edge.
How to fix a crumble if you accidentally mix it too much and it forms into a big lump of dough?
A lot of times there will be incident where you went a few minutes too far when making the crumble and instead of a crumbly mix, you get a dough! Instead of throwing them out and restarting from the start, here is a quick fix.
Place the dough in the fridge wrapped for a few minutes to chill. Then using a wire rack, press the dough through it and there you have little bits and chunks of crumble! :)
