French Apple Tart - with an English twist!

We had visitors yesterday so there were ten of us for the evening meal....

an ideal opportunity to reduce our produce mountain!

We thought of serving tomato soup followed by tomato and green pepper salad, topped off with tomato and green bean sorbet, but.....

In the event Colin cooked a tasty selection of meats on the barbecue to serve with salad and I used some of our fruit to make pear sorbet and a French Apple Tart - with a difference.

As it went down well, I thought I'd pass on the recipe. I used a combination of two recipes; the pastry from one and the filling from another - with a couple of additions of my own.

The pastry
Ingredients
250g plain flour
125g chilled butter
125g sugar
4 egg yolks*

Method
Put the flour in a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs (I used the food mixer). Stir in the sugar and egg yolks and add a little cold water to make a stiff dough. Roll out on a floured board and use to line a 10" flan dish. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

Flan topping
Ingredients
6-8 eating apples (depending on size), peeled and sliced
60g sugar
50g ground almonds
100g chilled butter, sliced thinly
4 tablespoons apricot jam, warmed

Method
When pastry case has chilled, brush base with a little of the apricot jam and sprinkle with ground almonds. Layer with apple slices decoratively. Sprinkle the sugar on top of the apples and dot with the slices of butter.

Bake for 45 mins at 180C or until the crust is cooked through and the apples are golden. Brush with the warmed apricot jam whilst the flan is still hot.
Serve with crème fraîche, ice-cream or pouring cream.

Mine didn't last long.......

 so even though I couldn't eat it because I didn't use gluten free flour, I'm confident I can recommend it!

*This didn't work out wasteful because the pear sorbet had conveniently used four egg whites!