Much ado about an Apple Tart

Several years ago, when I was still unmarried and without kids, a couple of my girlfriends and I learnt the ropes on how to bake an apple tart from one of our married friends.  We made the effort to go to her apartment and helped her bake the tart and in doing so, we took down notes and learnt how to do it, hands-on.

So when my hubby kept bringing back green apple after green apple from his workplace a few weeks ago (yes, my hubby’s workplace gives them fruits every day!), I could only think of baking that apple tart.  The last time I had baked an apple tart was before I was even pregnant with Ethan, so I really hoped it would turn out well.

Well, I found about 1.5 hours last Friday morning, and was thankful it turned out well.  We finished the apple tart within a day, so that must have meant something…there are still more Granny Smith apples in the refrigerator, so I might bake more next week 🙂

I even had some leftover pastry to make some mini apple tarts, or apple tartlets, if you may:

Here’s the recipe I used to bake my apple tart.  If you do try it, let me know if it turns out all right for ya 🙂

Ingredients

• 200g all-purpose or wheat flour
• 100g butter (softened slightly)
• Water to mix flour and butter
• 125g ground almonds
• 125g sugar
• 3 eggs
• Dash of ground cinnamon
• Some milk
• 2-3 medium-sized Granny Smith apples (the apples I had were HUGE, so I ended up using just ONE)
• 1 9-10″ pie/quiche pan, with removable bottom

Method

• For tart pastry, mix flour and butter with hands.  Knead into a dough, using some water to make the dough stick together
• Flatten the dough with a rolling pin to fit the pie/quiche flan.
• Cut off the edges of the pastry and use a fork to pierce the pastry all around.
• Bake in the oven at 200ºC for 10 minutes. (You can also put a sheet of baking paper on top of the pastry with some baking beans before baking it, but I didn’t)
• Remove pastry from oven and let it cool.
• Mix ground almonds, sugar, eggs and cinnamon in a mixing bowl with a spoon.  Add a little bit of milk if mixture is too sticky.  The resulting mixture should be smooth and “pourable” but not runny.
• Slice apples into semi-circle slices and arrange on the baked pastry.
• When the baked pastry has cooled down (after about 20 mins removed from the oven), pour the ground almond mixture on top.  Depending on how thick your flan is, you might need to toss away some of the mixture.  Just make sure the mixture does not overflow over the edges.
• Bake the apple tart in the oven for 45 minutes at 200ºC.
• Remove from oven and let cool.
• Serve 🙂