Apple and Almond Rose Tart – and the missing ingredient

I am sharing the recipe for this Apple and Rose Tart from my new book The Sweet Life, not just because it’s a beautiful tart that I love to make, and hope you make too, but because somehow after checking and editing my manuscript a million times, the recipe in my book is missing an ingredient. Aaaaahh!!! I really don’t know how it happened, as the editors scrutinise everything just as closely as I do. But somehow I forgot to mention how many apples are in this tart – I know! The apples! It’s called an Apple and Almond Rose Tart and the ingredients list does not specify any apples! (This is the part where I close my eyes and smack my forehead.) If you purchased my book I do apologise – this post is for you.

To be honest, it’s quite difficult to tell you exactly how many apples you need. You see, the apple part of this tart is the pretty ‘rose’ effect on the top. You need enough slices of apples to make the ‘petals’ of the rose to cover the top. This is going to be determined by how large your apples are and also how thinly you slice them. So I’m thinking that even though the number of apples is missing from the ingredients list, when you follow the method (which clearly tells you what to do with them) you would assume to just slice up as many as you need to cover the top? Do you think? In any case, I will put it out there and suggest this tart needs four apples, give or take. Perhaps slice up four and then if that’s not enough you can slice an extra one (if you’ve got large apples you may only need three).  Just go with your logic, and make the rose out of as many petals as you like. I’m not going to count them (nor would I expect you’d want me to). This is cooking after all, and I don’t want to lay down too many rules. Just have fun with it – the apples are there for taste, but for decorative purposes too, so get into creative mode and use what you need.

This is the pic from the book, see we even put the apples in the picture!

Here is the full (apples included) recipe.

Apple and Almond Rose Tart

This tart is as delicious to eat as it looks. The apples sit like a rose on a sweet frangipane almond and honey filling.

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Servings: 9

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

Pastry

• 300 g plain flour
• 60 g icing sugar
• finely grated rind of ½ a lemon
• 1 pinch salt
• 175 g cold butter, diced
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

Filling

• 4 apples
• juice of ½ a lemon
• 100 g butter, room temperature, diced
• 100 g icing sugar
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp honey
• 100 g almond meal
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 3 tbsp apricot jam
• icing sugar, extra, for dusting

Method

 

Make the Pastry

1. Put the flour, sugar, rind and salt into a food processor and pulse to combine. .
2. Add the cold butter and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 
3. Add the egg and vanilla and pulse just until it starts to cling together to form a dough.
4. Add up to 2 tbsp cold water if the mixture seems dry
5. Remove and form into a disk, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
6. Roll out the dough in-between two sheets of baking paper to a round shape approximately 3mm thick. Peel one sheet of paper off and flip the pastry into a 23cm round loose-bottom tart tin. Peel the second sheet of paper off and gently press the pastry into the tin, trimming any edges.
7. Prick the base all over with a fork and return to the refrigerator for 15 minutes (or the freezer for 5 minutes).
8. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan forced). 
9. Place a large sheet of baking paper into the cold pastry lined tart tin and fill with pie weights (or rice or beans). Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the baking paper and weights, turn the oven down to 180C (160C fan forced) and bake for another 7 minutes or until blonde in colour. This process blind-bakes the pastry to ensure the end result is crisp and cooked through.
10. Set aside while you make the filling.

Filling

1. Cut the apples in half and remove the cores. Slice as thinly as you can, using a mandolin if you like.
2. Place in a bowl and squeeze the lemon juice over and toss to coat to prevent them from browning. Set aside.
3. Place the butter, icing sugar and cinnamon into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between additions. Add the honey, almond meal and flour and fold through until well combined.
4. Spread the buttery almond filling into the blind baked tart shell. Arrange the apple slices on top to resemble petals. If you don’t have enough apple slices (this will be dependent on how you place them, how thinly you slice them and how large your apples were to begin with), slice up another apple. This is the time to be creative.
5. Return to the oven and bake for 30 – 35 minutes, or until the filling is set, the apples are golden and the pastry is crisp and golden.
6. Heat the jam briefly in a microwave or in a small saucepan over low heat and gently brush all over the apples while still hot.
7. Set aside to cool completely before removing from the tin. Serve dusted with icing sugar.

Recipe from my book: The Sweet Life, Home Baking and Sweet Treats  – Italian Style Photo – Locket Photography