Apple tart

Receta en español aquí

This is the first tart I remember having done, when I was just a child and I only used my mother’s kitchen to prepare sweet recipes. 

Ingredients

Crust (can be replaced by a sheet of fresh puff pastry)

250 g of wheat flour

125 g unsalted butter

75 g  white sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 yolks

Zest of ½ lemon

A pinch of salt

Pastry cream

500 ml whole milk

1 tablespoon cornstarch 
1 tablespoon wheat flour

1 whole egg and 3 egg yolks

80 g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Zest of ½ lemon.

A pinch of salt

Also

3 or 4 apples (2-3  to decorate, 1 to grind)

Peach jam diluted with a little water

Cherries in syrup to decorate

Directions

Crust

Mix the flour with the sugar, lemon zest, egg yolks, baking powder and butter slightly melted.

Knead with hands until the dough can be handled easily, if needed you can add a little milk.

Form the dough into a round shape and let rest covered with a clean cloth around 30 minutes.

Pastry cream

Preheat oven at  350 ºF (180 ºC) at least 20 minutes before baking the tart.

Mix sugar and flour in a glass, add a little milk and mix stirring well to dissolve.

Beat the eggs.

Heat remaining milk in a saucepan with a thick bottom and when it begins to boil, add the milk with flour, beaten eggs, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt.

Keep stirring over medium heat until thickened.

When it thickens remove from the heat and let it cool.

Assembly

Extend the homemade dough or the puff pastry sheet with  your hands, in a curly mold 10-11 inches previously floured. In my case I used one of 8 inches and 3 small tartlet molds.

You can bake the crust a few minutes, filled with dry beans,  or you can fill it directly with the pastry cream. If you are using puff pastry I recommend baking around 10 minutes.

If you bake the crust first, it will  be crunchier. If you do not bake, as I have done,  it will be less crunchy. That is a matter of taste.

Peel an apple and take his heart with a apple corer or the knife. Cut and place in a food processor and grind.

Peel two or three apples, remove the heart and cut to decorate the tart.

Fill the crust first with the ground apple, then with the pastry cream and garnish with apple slices in concentric circles from the outside to the center.

Paint them with a brush and peach jam diluted with a little water and put in the oven at 350 ºF, around 45-50 minutes.

Let cool in the oven with the door ajar and when the tart is cold put it in the fridge until the next day.

Decorate with cherries before serving. And enjoy!