Apple Tart

With Vito Aluia

Tired of making apple pies? As good as they are, this is a new and perfect way to use your apples this season.

A tart is pastry crust with shallow sides and no top, filled with fruit or other more savory types of fillings. Vito Aluia of Puff Tarts demonstrates one of his favorite dessert tarts made with fresh apples. There are two methods for coring the apples and he demonstrates both, one using a mechanical apple peeler/corer. Even in today's high-tech world, there's nothing better or faster for peeling, slicing and coring apples than this old-fashioned tool. The other method he shows is using a hand corer, which is probably easier if you are just coring a few apples.

One of the taste benefits to Vito of an apple tart as opposed to an apple pie is the firm texture of the crust, especially the bottom of the crust. He started experimenting with making the perfect tart several years ago and shares everything he has learned in the process, such as refrigerating the crust 30 minutes before cooking.

Ingredients

1 piece of puff pastry dough (can be purchased from store in 1 pound packages)
Flour for rolling dough
6 Granny Smith apples
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 lemon for juice
2 to 4 tablespoons of apricot preserves

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450 F. 1. Roll out dough into a piece larger than 11 inches. Cut out a round piece with an 11-inch bowl. Using a sharp knife, cut around the edge of the bowl to create an 11-inch circle.
2. Place dough in tart pan and form to the contours of the pan.
3. Peel and core apples. Slice each apple in half, and then slice into thin pieces (1/8 inch).
4. Spread sugar (reserve a small amount for sprinkling the top of the tart) and cinnamon onto bottom of tart shell and spread evenly.
5. Lay uneven apple slices onto the bottom of the tart shell. Starting on the outside, take the other slices and lay out in an even pattern around the shell. Fill center with a few apple slices.
6. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the apples and squeeze lemon over the same.
7. Bake for 45 minutes at 450 F.
8. After removing from the oven, heat apricot preserves with 2 to 4 tablespoons of water in the microwave and lightly brush or glaze over the top of the tart.
9. Un-mold the tart while still warm so that any overflow of juices does not stick to the tart pan.

Recipe courtesy of Vito Aluia, Puff! Tarts, 2010.

Baker and Co-owner, Puff! Tarts After an unsatisfying pie that he paid $40 for, professional photographer Vito began making his own tarts, which he feels are superior anyway because of the firm crust. Sales are mostly at farmer’s markets in Lexington and Gloucester, MA. At Puff, baking is a family affair. Chef Vito Aluia is joined in the kitchen by his teenaged daughter, Viviana, early each morning to make the day’s selection of sweet and savory tarts.