Pear Apple Tart

Christmas time is hard to beat-  The lights! The sparkle! The peppermint! The music! And if you're a sane person and waited until after Thanksgiving to get into the Christmas spirit, that means you only have a few short weeks to enjoy your favorite time of the year.

But people, it's still Fall! The season of fallen leaves, and pumpkin, and pears! So before you put on your jingle bells and break out the annual Christmas fudge, take a second and enjoy those last juicy pears and crisp apples. Preferably, in tart form.

Pear Apple Tart
Yield: 8 Servings

Ingredients: 
For the crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup ice water

For the filling:
3 ripe pears, peeled (ex. Bartlett)
3 tart apples, peeled (ex. Granny Smith)
1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1. First, make the crust. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, or in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the dry ingredients for the crust. Add the butter and pulse or paddle until the butter is the size of peas. With the mixer running, add the ice water. Pulse the mixture just until it starts to come together. If it seems to wet, add a little more flour. If it doesn't stick together when pressed in your hand, add a little more ice water. Turn out onto a floured board and form into a disc. Wrap and chill at least one hour.
2. Next make the filling. Core and dice 2 apples and 2 pears into 1/2'' pieces. Place in a sauce pot with the 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla, and water. Create a parchment lid for your pot by following the directions here but cut the tip off the triangle, so you end up with a circle with a small hole in the center. The lid should fit inside the rim of your pot, not hang over the sides.
3. Place the pot over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the fruit has softened, but is not falling apart. You may need to add more water as the fruit cooks to prevent it from drying out if your pears weren't particularly juicy. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
4. When your dough is ready, roll it out to 1/4'' thick, and about 2'' larger than your tart pan. Line the tart pan with the dough and trim the edges. Place back in the fridge to chill.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the remaining pear and apple into quarters and slice each one very thinly.
6. Fill the tart shell about 1/2 way full with your reserved fruit filling. Cover the filling with the fruit slices. Start at the outside of the shell and lay the pear slices down, slightly overlapping each other until you have one large ring of pear slices. Next, use the apple slices and create a smaller ring inside the pear. Continue until the whole tart is covered with apple and pear slices. Don't be afraid to use a lot! It's OK if they seem mounded up in the center; they will shrink as they cook.
7. Brush fruit slices gently with the melted butter and sprinkle generously with more sugar. Bake tart for 50-60 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Let cool to room temperature, slice, and serve.


Recipe Notes:

• You may have some fruit filling leftover! Don't use it all if it doesn't look like it's going to fit. You can always store it in the fridge, and reheat it to serve with pancakes or ice cream.
• Try this with just the apples! Follow the same instructions but use a sweet apple instead of Granny Smiths.

Free-Form Italian Plum Tart

When you're a poor student faced with loans that reach high into the six figures, you start to get creative about making and saving money. Although I only have class from 8:30-2:30 during the week, that still makes finding a part-time job kind of a challenge. Plus, the thought of working retail (unless that retail store is Tiffany & Co.) or waiting tables is just way too nauseating (although given how incredibly bad the wait staff is in this city, I probably wouldn't have a problem finding a job or making decent money at it, but it would mean selling my soul and I'm saving that for when I really need it, like when I want to intern at Jean Georges). 

Since I can't exactly make a steady paycheck, I'm focusing on saving money. Or at least I'm trying. For example, out of all the numerous menus for Chinese food we have, my roommate Shaun and I chose the cheapest option possible for dinner Friday night. We ordered enough food to feed a small village, and it was only $20. We still have enough left over for probably 2 more dinners. I may have to call the CDC, but what's a little Salmonella in exchange for pinching pennies?

And here's another money-saving tip: grow your own food. Dan planted a garden this summer and we've been eating peppers, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers for just the cost of the seeds. Not only does this save money and give him a hobby, but you don't get more local than your own backyard. Given all of these interests, imagine our delight when we discovered the plum tree growing on Dan's street. 

Local, fresh produce that is also FREE? JACKPOT.

They are much smaller than the plums you find in the grocery store, but they taste exactly the same, with sweet, flavorful fruit and tart skins. After harvesting a big bag of plums, conversing with the tenants whose house the tree is in front of, being offered a cocktail and a ladder (great combo), and almost being eaten alive by mosquitoes, we had more than enough plums for this free-form tart.

I really liked the tart dough and the plums were nice and flavorful, but it seemed a little one note. I did really like the addition of the lemon zest in the dough, which is not something I've ever done before; I think it may have been my favorite part, and is a technique I could apply to lots of different pies.

One of the only problems we encountered was when we checked on the tart after about 20 minutes, things didn't look promising. The plum juice had formed a pool around the tart and the uncooked dough almost looked as if it was going to dissolve. But we pressed on. After the full cooking time, the tart looked much better.

While Dan loved this, I thought it was just good. It wasn't too tart and it wasn't too sugary, but there was just something about it that I didn't absolutely love.

Of course, that didn't stop me from eating two pieces and, between the two of us, finishing off more than half of it the night we made it. What? It was small! 

Free-Form Italian Plum Tart 

Ingredients:
For the Pastry
1 cup All-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
Grated zest of a small lemon
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
8 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cubed
1-2 Tablespoons cold water

For the Fruit
20 or so Italian plums
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed

Directions:
1. Make the pastry. Combine the flour, sugar, lemon zest, and salt in a bowl. Cut in the cubed butter until it is the size of peas. 

Hydrate the dough with the cold water and mix, just until the dough holds together. Wrap well and chill for at least 30 minutes.

2. Next, prepare the fruit. Wash the plums, cut them then half and remove the pits. Set aside.

3.Roll out the dough into a circle about 10'' in diameter and 1/8'' thick.

Leaving a 2 inch border, cover the middle of the dough with plums, cut side down. Sprinkle the sugar over the fruit (Note: We found we had way too much sugar and were almost burying the fruit. Use your judgment and add according to your taste. If the plums are particularly sweet, less sugar will be needed). Top the fruit with the cubed butter. 

4. Fold the excess dough up and over the fruit. 

 Remember, this tart is free-form, so you can leave the edges rough, or crimp them decoratively. I was feeling particularly lazy free when I made this. 

Place the tart back in the fridge and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

5. Bake the tart at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until the crust is browned and the juices of the fruit are bubbling. 

Allow to cool slightly before slicing. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Or both.

Adapted from Tasty by Roy Finamore

Nom, nom, nom

French Apple Tart

For my first course I actually chose to make a dessert and I did this for a few reasons. First, I love dessert. I have a huge sweet tooth and I don't think a meal is really complete without something sweet, preferably something chocolate. Secondly, I wanted to start with something I felt comfortable and confident doing, and for me, that's baking. 

I chose Ina's French Apple Tart, the first dessert listed in Back to Basics and Ina's personal favorite. The last apple dessert I made for my family fell flat...literally. I had attempted to make an apple tart tatin, which I had never made before. It's basically a fancy upside-down apple tart covered in caramel that looks very impressive once unveiled...theoretically. I even convinced my mother to buy a special Emile Henry tart tatin dish and was really excited to try it out. However, after two separate attempts to make the caramel (one of which resulted in burned sugar that my mother had to practically pickaxe off the pan), apple juice all over myself and the counter, and a lackluster result, we chocked it up to a loss. Needless to say, my mom traded in the tart tatin pan for a new Cuisinart food processor on steroids, and I felt it was time to redeem myself. So was I successful?  

Well, the first component I started with was the tart dough, which the recipe suggests is done with a food processor. I have been making pie and tart dough this way for years and have found that this is by far the easiest method. It eliminates kneading and pastry cutters and is virtually fool proof. Seriously, just try it the next time you're just whipping up a quick pie in your free time. My first challenge was trying to figure out the intense new food processor my mom upgraded to:

Please note the instruction manual.

After a phone consult with my mother, I managed to assemble the food processor correctly and added the flour, salt, and sugar, and pulsed to combine. Next I added chilled butter which I had diced into small pieces. Here's what the mixture looked like before its spin in the processor:

I pulsed the mixture until the butter was the size of large peas, and then added a stream of cold water through the feed tube while the machine was still running. I then pulsed the whole mixture until it just started to hold together and looked like this:

I spilled the mixture out onto a floured surface and formed it into a disc (see, no kneading!)

I wrapped this in plastic and it chilled out in the fridge for one hour. There's a note in the directions that a sheet of defrosted puff pastry can be used in place of making this dough, but considering that it only took about 7 minutes to make and was flaky and buttery and delicious, I don't think I would ever make the substitution.

With an hour to kill it was time to catch up on the Grey's Anatomy episode I missed last night, punctuated by some games of fetch with Layla.

 

I mean, come on, how could you resist that face?

After the dough had been chilling for about an hour, I preheated the oven and lined a sheet pan with parchment paper. I took the dough from the fridge and rolled it out on a floured counter top. 

Let me also say, this dough was incredibly easy to roll out. I've been known to get just a tad frustrated when working with a particularly tough or hard dough (visions of crumpling it into a ball and throwing it against the wall come to mind), but not this one; it was soft and smooth and lovely. Ok, ok, enough about the perfect dough. I rolled it out into a large rectangle and measured to ensure it was at least 10'' by 14''

Next, I trimmed the edges so I had straight sides. Ina suggests using a ruler for this step but I felt that was unnecessary since this is sort of a rustic tart. (Ok, so I actually couldn't find one, but in the end it didn't make a difference.) I transferred the dough to the prepared baking sheet and put it back in the fridge. Next, it was on to the apples:

The picture you see in the background is Ina's version of the tart, so you can compare mine to hers once we get to the end. Oh and Layla made an appearance when she heard mention of apples.

This recipe uses Granny Smiths which are my favorite type of apples to use in pies since the tartness of the apple is balanced by the added sugar and butter. I peeled the apples, halved them, and cored them using a melon-baller. Next, I sliced the apples crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices

And gave a piece to Layla

 

since she's more akin to a cow than a real dog.

Next, I started layering the apple slices in diagonal rows across the pastry, starting in the middle and slightly overlapping them as I went:

I made 3 complete rows and filled in the empty spaces around the edges with some smaller slices. My sister, Alex, took a break from her duty as photographer and also helped with this step since she's the more aesthetically inclined one. Once the dough was covered in apple slices,  I sprinkled it with sugar and dotted it with small pieces of butter. Here's the final product pre-baked:

While the tart baked, I prepped the glaze. Since I couldn't find the apricot jelly the recipe favors, I used Ina's second choice, apricot preserves and followed the directions to heat and sieve it.  The recipe calls for 1/2 a cup, but I started with about 3/4 of a cup since I knew some of the volume would be depleted once it was strained. I heated it over medium heat for just a few minutes, and put it through a strainer so it was nice and smooth:

I know the red bowl makes it kind of hard to see, but it was jammy and smooth

At this point, the tart had been in the oven for about 25 minutes, so it was time to rotate the pan. I was worried the apples were looking a little brown already, so I also moved the pan down to a lower rack in the oven. The recipe's suggested baking time is 45 minutes-1 hour, but after only 40 minutes, the apples were pretty brown and the pastry looked done so I took it out of the oven. There's something in the recipe about burning apple juice (which is apparently nothing to worry about...) but this wasn't an issue for me. Some of the sugar and juice caramelized around the edges of the tart, but this was easy to break away once the tart had cooled. 

While the tart cooled slightly, I re-heated the sieved apricot preserves with a few tablespoons of apple brandy to make the glaze. I then brushed this on the tart, covering the apples and any exposed pastry. Using a spatula, I loosened the tart away from the parchment paper to ensure it didn't stick later.  And here's the finished product:

Looks pretty good, right?

I was pretty proud

The suggested serving method is to cut the tart into 6 pieces, allotting 1 piece per person, but we found that you could easily cut these pieces in half again (as in the bottom right piece), which resulted in an adequate serving size as well. Theoretically, you could even cut these pieces further, into 24 bite-sized pieces to feed a larger crowd:

Unlike Ina, my family and I are die hard chocolate lovers so I was a little skeptical about how this dessert would be received, but we all really enjoyed it, even Alex who was probably the most skeptical given her distaste for the typical apple-cinnamon combo.  This was a nice departure from that classic preparation which can be over bearingly sweet and cinammony and completely hide the apple flavor. The combination here of the tart apples with the sweet sugar and super-flaky pastry was just delicious. The apricot glaze added shine and intensified the apple flavor, without competing with it. This dessert was such a hit, it even got clearance to be served as our choice for the fruit dessert at Thanksgiving this year. 


Make this when: you want to impress someone, such as your boss or your significant other's parents.  


Next Course: Cape Cod Chopped Salad 

Photogarphy courtesy of my sister, Alex. Editor's note: this post probably has more pictures than will be customary since I had my own personal photographer on hand, a luxury that may be scarce in the future.