French Apple Tart

For Jeremy's recent birthday, Craig very sweetly gave a gift not only to Jeremy but also to me, since I played just a bit part in the reason for the festivities ... :)

He gave me a cookbook - one of my very favorite things, of course! Simca's Cuisine was written by Simone "Simca" Beck, who co-wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking with the beloved Julia Child. The book "gives us her own cuisine in delectable recipes ... arranged in menus for every occasion."

I selected a recipe from the section entitled "Un Diner à la Compagne" [uh dee-NAY ah lah cohm-PAHN-yuh] - A Dinner in the Country. The apple-almond tart Simca recommended serving for dessert was perfect for my Tu B'Shevat [TOO bay sheh-VAHT] dinner, celebrating the Jewish New Year of the Trees.

Trees are very important in Judaism, as is tikkun olam [tee-KOON oh-LAHM], which is "repairing the world." Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai even taught the following lesson: "If you have a sapling in your hand and someone tells you the Messiah has arrived, first plant the sapling and then go out to welcome the Messiah." Planting trees is a means to providing food, shelter, and many other benefits to both current and - especially - future generations.

And so, on the 15th day of the month of Shevat (on the Hebrew calendar), it is customary to eat fruits, particularly those which come from trees. Many people partake of a seder, a formal celebration, in which ritual foods are eaten; these include fruits with an inedible shell, those with an inedible inner pit, and fruits with no shell and no pit.

Thus, this beautiful French tart with almonds, apricots, and raisins, as well as apples, combines traditional representative foods in one lovely, sweet, delicious dessert. It was perfect for the holiday, and would be ideal at any time that a simple but sophisticated dessert is needed.

On a completely unrelated note: in the past I've mentioned my fixation upon the Bocuse d'Or, the bi-annual culinary "Olympics" which took place in France last week. Here are the final results, for those who weren't parked in front of their computer screens obsessively watching the streaming presentation of meat and fish platters while sipping their morning coffee before work!

Best Promotion: Guatemala
Best Poster: Hungary
Best Commis ([coh-MEE] = assistant): Kristian Curtis, United Kingdom
Best Fish Platter: Norway
Best Meat Platter: United Kingdom
Bronze: Japan (the commis was in tears ... it was so sweet!)
Silver: Denmark (gold medalists in 2011)
Gold: France (they almost feel it's their birthright to win this, so they're very happy!)


French Apple Tart
(slightly adapted from a recipe in Simca's Cuisine by Simone "Simca" Beck)

Crust:

• 1-1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/8 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/8 cup shortening, at room temperature
• 2-3 tablespoons (or more) ice water

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, and salt. With a fork, mix in butter and shortening until mixture resembles meal. Stir in 2 tablespoons water with the fork, until the dough starts to form a ball. Add water by the tablespoon if more is needed. Form into a ball, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Filling:

• 1/3 cup Solo Apricot pastry filling
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1/2 cup whole almonds, ground fine
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 2 large Honeycrisp apples, peeled, cored, grated
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• ice cream, for serving (either vanilla or rum raisin would be ideal)

Roll dough out into a 12" circle and place into a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom (or into a 9" pie pan). Press dough into the bottom of the pan and up against the sides, then trim dough even with edge of pan. Spread apricot filling over bottom of crust, then refrigerate while making filling.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, cinnamon, sugar, and salt. Stir in the ground almonds and the raisins. Stir in the grated apples, then pour filling into the prepared crust.

Place the tart pan onto a larger baking sheet, to catch drips, then bake for 20 minutes.

Prick the tart all over with a fork, then pour butter over the top of the tart and let it seep into the filling. Raise oven temperature to 375F, then bake for 15 more minutes until tart is golden and set.

Let cool completely, then remove rim from tart pan. Place tart onto a platter and serve with ice cream.

Makes 12 servings.

 
Tomorrow, by the way, is World Nutella Day - yay!!! So here are some recipes to choose from, for your celebration:

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love Tart

Peanut Butter Pancakes with Nutella Sauce

Banana Nutella Cake with Coffee Glaze

Krispy Kreme Peanut Butter Dream Sandwich

Chocolate Cake with Nutella Buttercream Frosting

Julia Child Week: Onion Tart with Anchovies and Black Olives

It's Julia Child Week! Wednesday would have been Julia's 100th birthday, so there have been many tributes: special dinners at restaurants around the country, a lovely new children's book about Julia and her cat in Paris, a panel nominating her top 100 recipes, a picnic I enjoyed yesterday (which will be Wednesday's features here and on AnnArbor.com) ... oh, the festivities! Oh, the food!

I remember watching "The French Chef" with my mother many moons ago; I'd be eating my pb&j, watching as this charming woman made lovely dishes and made us all feel that we could tackle each of these steps, as well. With Julia, cooking elaborate and sophisticated meals wasn't intimidating ... it was fun!

So this week, I'm featuring a variety of Julia's recipes. I looked over the list of the top 100, but many of them were too rich and heavy for hot August days, or they would require specialized equipment or techniques. And I've written posts about lighter dishes - such as souffles and cream puffs and potato salad with vinaigrette - already, so I wanted to offer new items.

So - dedicated soul that I am! - I perused cookbooks to find recipes that struck my fancy, that were easy to make, that were flavorful, that were summery, and that were representative of Julia Child herself: at their essence, a few simple ingredients that shone when prepared properly.

Today's offering is a simple tart, which looks very contemporary - bruschetta-like, reminiscent of foccaccia. And yet, it comes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, which was originally published in 1961. The classics will always be perfect and timeless ... just like Julia Child herself.





Pissaladière Niçoise (Onion Tart with Anchovies and Black Olives) [pee-sah-lah-DEEAYR nee-SWAHZ]

(adapted from Julia Child's recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I)

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 basil leaves, minced
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 1 8" piece naan (or other prepared flatbread)
• 8 anchovy fillets, drained of oil
• 8 Kalamata olives, halved lengthwise
• 1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

In a small skillet, heat oil over very low heat.  Add onion, basil, parsley, and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes until onion is tender and caramelized.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Place the flatbread onto a baking sheet; arrange the anchovies and olives decoratively on top.

Sprinkle cheese over the flatbread.  Bake for 10-15 minutes until cheese has started to melt and tart is heated through.

Cut into 4-6 pieces and serve immediately.

(Feel free to leave off the anchovies and substitute a few more olives, if desired.  But they really marry well with the olives - strong flavors working together to enhance the whole ....)

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love Tart

Elvis Presley was noted for many things, among them his beautiful baritone, his white jumpsuits, his gyrations, and his beloved grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

Since I obsess about food, let's focus on those sandwiches, shall we?

This is my final entry into Project PB&J - a contest for food bloggers which is being hosted by my friend Cindy of Once Upon a Loaf and her friend Christina of She Runs, She Eats.  The competition is in honor of National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, as well as Cindy's birthday, on April 2; and the rules required preparing a sandwich and/or a baked good with a nut butter and a jelly/jam or fruit.

So, as I thought of all the variations on the theme of peanut butter paired with fruit, how could I not think of Elvis' favorite treat?  And yet, that particular pb&j has already been done, hasn't it?  Hmmm ....

But it could be transformed into a different entity, couldn't it, taking the essential components and whirling them in my brain until I devised a different concoction with those flavors ...?

And so, I settled upon a dessert ... a dessert with a peanut butter-flavored crust ... a dessert with a peanut butter-flavored filling ... a dessert with a peanut butter-flavored topping ... and a dessert with bananas happily mixed in.

Thus, I present to you ... the Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love Tart!

Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love Tart


Crust:
1-1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup butter, chilled, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
3 tablespoons ice water


In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar and salt.  Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles meal.  Mix in the peanut butter with a fork.  Add water 1 tablespoon at a time and stir with a fork; then knead gently until the mixture comes together.  Form dough into a ball, flatten into a disc, and wrap in plastic; refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.  On a lightly floured countertop, roll out dough to a 12" round.  Place dough into a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom or into a 9" pie pan; trim edges.

Place a sheet of foil into the crust and fill with dry beans.  Place the tart pan onto a baking sheet; bake for 15 minutes, until the crust is set.  Remove foil and beans, bake for 5 more minutes until the crust is cooked, then let crust cool completely.

Filling:
2 cups Breyer's Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream, very soft
3 small bananas, sliced thin
1/3 cup Nutella
1/4 cup peanut butter-flavored Multi Grain Cheerios, ground (a fabulous marketing gift to play with!)
1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts, ground
whipped cream, if desired

Spread the ice cream into the prepared crust; top with the sliced bananas, then freeze for 45 minutes until the ice cream is mostly set.

Spread the Nutella over the bananas, swirling it over the top.  (If the ice cream mingles with the Nutella, it won't hurt anything ... I know from personal experience!)  Combine the Cheerios and peanuts, then sprinkle over the top of the tart.  Freeze for at least 3 hours until firmly set.

Let the tart rest at room temperature for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes 12 servings.  Serve with whipped cream, if desired.

Be sure you play Elvis tunes while you prepare this.  Just as you should listen to arias while cooking Italian food, you need to listen to the King while making this tart in his honor!  Infuse your food with the appropriate spirit ....

The Saga of the Broken Apple Tart

'Tis the season to pick apples, fa la la la la la la la la. Whether you pick them at an orchard or at a farmers' market or at a grocery store is up to you. But you must pick them!

And while there are lots of cobblers and crisps and applesauce in all of our futures after we pick our apples, I thought I might make something a bit more elegant and also use the tart pan I just found again after moving last month.

I made a Caramel Apple Tart ... sigh.

Of course, I have to admit that my cooking venture with the apples didn't start out as a tart; my original plan was to make dairy-free caramel apples for my co-workers, one of whom has a dairy allergy. But the caramel was too hard, and became too brittle to bite into.

So I smashed the caramel off the apples and melted it with a bit more of the non-dairy milk substitute I'd used in making the original batch. I poured the now-liquid mixture into a greased pan, refrigerated it, and hoped to cut it into soft caramels.

But ... the ingredients separated and the greasy butter substitute rose to the top, coating everything in a layer of slime. It was pretty disgusting! (Remember, just 'cause I write about food doesn't mean that everything I make is a success! We all have our trials, our errors, our experiments, our humiliations ....)

So, then, after venting in frustration as my plans had gone so significantly awry, I still had apples to use up.

Et, voila! An apple tart!

I contributed some caramel sauce and some leftover streusel topping from a different baking project to the cause, and thus was able to clear some items out of my refrigerator while also redeeming my afternoon of kitchen adventures.

And the tart turned out beautifully - gorgeous, with tender apples coated in sweet caramel.

My ego was restored!

That is, until I tried to slice the tart for its photo op. I just didn't have any "mazal" - luck - with my apple ventures on this particular day. Each time I tried to cut a piece, the back crust crumbled or the bottom crust only came up partially from the pan ... oy! Sometimes it's easier to just go to the grocery store!

But once again, I pulled a proverbial trick out of ye olde hat. I simply scooped up the crust, filling and topping and plopped some onto a serving plate. A never-unwelcome scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, and ... voila!

I present to you an elegant French dessert which will now be known as Tarte Cassée de Pomme [tart cah-SAY deh POHM]: Broken Apple Tart.

Broken Apple Tart

Tart:
1 pie crust, at room temperature
8 apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1/4" slices
2/3 cup caramel ice cream sauce

Streusel:
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup cookie crumbs (from Nilla wafers or graham crackers)
1/2 ounce sliced almonds
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375F.

Place the pie crust into a false-bottomed tart pan (or a pie dish). Press crust into the bottom of the pan and up the sides; use a knife to trim excess dough.

In a large mixing bowl, combine apple slices and caramel sauce; pour into the crust.

In a small bowl, combine all of the streusel ingredients; sprinkle over the apples.

Place the tart pan onto a larger baking sheet because the caramel sauce seeps a bit, and bake for 50 minutes until top is golden and the apples are tender when pierced with a knife.

Let cool to room temperature, then try to serve it in slices. When it won't cooperate, simply scoop it up, place it on a serving dish, and offer it with ice cream or whipped cream ... and no explanations of what its original incarnation was supposed to be!

Makes 8-10 servings.