French Apple Tart with Walnut Shortbread Crust
A stunning French apple tart that looks impressive, but is surprisingly simple to make. Thinly sliced apples are brushed with maple syrup and baked in a buttery walnut shortbread crust for a delicious dessert for the holidays.
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Equipment
- Food Processor or Pastry Cutter
Ingredients
Walnut Crust
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 10 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cut into chunks
- ½ cup walnuts or pecans, finely chopped
- 1 large egg, yolk and white separated
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
Apple Filling
- 2 lbs Honey Crisp apples (about 4-5 apples)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
- ¼ cup pure maple syrup
Instructions
Walnut Crust
- In a bowl, combine the flour, powdered sugar and salt. Add the butter, and use a pastry cutter to cut the butter in until the butter is evenly distributed with pieces no bigger than peas, and the flour is moist and crumbly. Stir in the chopped walnuts.
- Add the egg yolk (reserving the egg white for later) and the vanilla. Use your hands to work the moisture into the dough crumbs, until evenly distributed and moist enough that the crumbs will stick together if you squeeze them in your hand.
- Line your tart pan with a circle of parchment paper on the bottom. Dump the crumbs into the pan, spread them out, then press them evenly and firmly against the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
- Freeze the crust for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Use a fork to prick the frozen crust all over - this is called "docking" the dough, and helps prevent it from puffing up.
- Now place a piece of parchment paper inside the crust, and fill the paper with dried beans or pie weights. This is called "blind baking", and also prevents the crust from puffing up. By baking the crust like this, you'll only be partially baking it, and it will finish baking later with the apple filling.Bake the crust for 20 minutes.
- Take the pan out of the oven, and reduce the oven temperature to 350 F. Remove the dried beans and the paper.
- In a small bowl, lightly beat the leftover egg white with a fork, then brush it over the hot crust. This will help to seal the crust, and prevent it from getting soft from the apple filling. Set the crust aside until you're ready to fill with the apples.
Apple Filling
- Peel and core the apples, then slice them very thinly, about 1/16 inch thick. Place the apple slices in a bowl, drizzle with the lemon juice and sprinkle with the sugar. Very gently, toss the apples with your hands to coat them in the lemon juice and sugar, taking care not to break the apple slices. Set aside until you're ready to fill your crust.
- Sprinkle the 1 tablespoon flour over the bottom of the crust.
- Take 7-8 apple slices at a time, fan them out slightly, and arrange them in the crust, as shown in the photos. Keep the apple slices mostly upright as you arrange them, not lying down on their side. Arrange overlapping groups of apple slices all the way around the edge of the crust.Now do the same in the middle, working with fewer apple slices at a time, as needed. As you get closer to the middle, it gets a bit trickier, and you may need to arrange 1 apple slice at a time to finish the middle. If you have leftover apples, you can tuck them in here and there in the tart, wherever you see a gap in your design.Discard the liquid at the bottom of the bowl of apples.
- Dot the apples with the cubed butter, and place a pie crust shield on top of the pan (or use strips of foil) to protect the edge of the crust from burning.
- Bake the tart at 350 F for about 1 hour, until the apples are tender. Take the tart out of the oven and set on a cooling rack. Brush the hot apples with the maple syrup. Let cool for about an hour and serve warm, or at room temperature.
Notes
This French apple tart is best eaten the day it's made, but is still delicious the next day. Store leftover tart in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
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