Apple tart

[dianeduane]

It's about to start happening -- that most gloriously seasonal of desserts. The tree in the paddock is so loaded down with Bramleys, the branches are bending halfway to the ground. Gotta do something about that while other work is going on.

The tart dough comes first. The basic recipe is Swiss: they do the best fruit tarts I know of. This makes enough for a 10-to-11 inch (25-28cm) flat tart pan / tin.

Basic Sweet Rich Pastry (Süsser Mürbeteig)

• 6 oz (175g) plain flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3 oz (75g) butter, well chilled
• 3 oz (75g) caster sugar (that's fine granulated sugar for US folk)
• 1 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

Sift the flour and sugar together into a large mixing bowl. Coat the butter with flour from the bowl to make it easier to handle, and grate it directly onto the flour, using the coarse blade of a cheese grater. As you grate the butter, mix the flakes together with the flour occasionally, using your fingertips, before grating more.

Add the sugar and lemon rind. Using two round-bladed knives, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles cornmeal.

Mix the egg lightly with a fork and pour over the flour mixture. Using the fork, mix the egg into the flour mixture until well distributed. Then, using your hand, pull the dough gently together into a bal. Knead lightly and briefly on a floured board until the dough forms a cohesive mass. Pat into a flat round and wrap tightly in Saran wrap / plastic wrap / clingflim. Refrigerate for at least an hour before using.

If you're doing this with a food processor (which is how I do it):  Dump in the flour and salt first: pulse to aerate / sift. Add the sugar and lemon rind: pulse again. Add the butter, in pats / lumps of about a teaspoon each: pulse once or twice to get them covered with flour, then process briefly to the cornmeal texture. Add the egg. Pulse sparingly until the whole business forms a ball. Empty the container out onto a floured surface, knead briefly, pat the dough flat and wrap as above.

Apple-tart contents in the next posting...

Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that you might like our family gingerbread recipe, which is in this post (http://miss-next.livejournal.com/333230.html) if you're interested.

[batyatoon]

I always wondered what caster sugar was.

And mmmm, pastry.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

"fine granulated sugar" isn't a US concept that I'm familiar with. There's plain ordinary granulated sugar, and there's powdered sugar. Perhaps other degrees of granulation are available if I look more carefully, or in baking specialty stores or something.

[summerrose.livejournal.com]

Fine granulated sugar is available in most large supermarkets in the US. Go to where the sugar is and read the fronts of the packages clearly. It might also be separate, with other baking items.

[fiveforsilver]

This is possibly a silly question, but is there anything that can be substituted for the lemon rind? I don't use lemons and while I would buy a lemon just to make this, I would use something else if I could, rather than grate off some rind and throw away the lemon.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

If you allow the butter to warm to room temperature and wrap it in cheesecloth or the like 'til it starts melting, you can rub it all across the rolled-out dough. Then fold it up, rollit out again and repeat the melted-butter application until the butter's gone.

What this does is create multiple thin layers of butter throughout the crust, which makes it flaky and delicious.