Put together a delicious bite to eat with Mary Berry’s super simple and tasty dessert recipe. The iconic baking guru revealed her go-to method for making a French apple tart, which pairs exceptionally well with double cream or ice cream.
On a lovely warm evening, it’s the ideal treat to tuck into – especially if you’re enjoying yourself in the garden. As for the apples to use for this dessert, it’s recommended to use Bramley apples as cooking apples. As for the apple slices for the topping, Braeburn apples will hold their shape while being baked.
French apple tart
Serves: four
Ingredients
For the pastry:
175g all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
75g salted butter, cubed
One large egg yolk
For the filling:
900g cooking apples, quartered and chopped
55g salted butter
Four tbsp apricot jam
55g sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
Finely grated zest of half a lemon
Two (225g) dessert apples, peeled, quartered, and thinly sliced
Two tbsp fresh lemon juice
For the glaze
Four tbsp apricot jam
Method
Make the pastry
Rub the butter into the flour, then add the egg yolk, and chill the mixture for half hour.
Cook the cooking apples with butter and water. Sieve, then cook with the jam, sugar, and lemon zest until thick.
Baking
Roll the pastry, line the tin, and blind bake at 200C for 15 to 20 minutes. Then spread the apple purée in the pastry shell.
Top with apple slices, brush with lemon juice and sprinkle sugar over the top, then bake for 25 minutes until golden. Heat the apricot jam, the glaze the tart. Serve.
Served warm or at room temperature, a French apple tart is the kind of rustic dessert that manages to feel both elegant and deeply comforting.
With its thinly sliced apples arranged in beautiful spirals over buttery pastry and finished with a glossy glaze, it’s as pleasing to the eye as it is to the palate.
This tart offers a lovely contrast between the crisp edges of the apples and the soft, delicate texture beneath, all held together by a flaky, golden crust.
Whether paired with a spoonful of crème fraîche, ice cream or double cream, it’s a timeless treat that never fails to impress.