Sweet Patootie

Yes, Food and Home magazine, Let Us Eat cake! I would love to!  I was elated and joyful when I saw the “Let us eat cake” sub-heading on the April 2011 Issue of Food and Home Magazine.  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s like Christmas every month when you receive a new issue of F&H in the post. This time I was particularly impressed and overjoyed, when I saw that one of the features was “Let us eat cake”. I’m very attracted to phrases of this kind “Let ___ eat cake”. Now that is what I like to hear, lol. I have two books with these words in the title, one an autobiographical account of the authors love and discovery of cakes as he grew up; the other, a Christian novel about an aspiring pastry chef. Both wonderful books!

So, back to the April 2011 Food and Home issue, in my delirium, seeing as I saw the “Let us eat cake”, I thought the picture on the cover was some kind of fusion apple cake and tart all in one. And man, did it look good. I decided I would have to make it immediately! Upon my descent from cloud 9, closer inspection of the cover, and actually reading the recipe, I discovered that this was a TART and not a ‘fusion cake’, as I had initially thought. I was not deterred, it looked so good, and I would not have a peaceful night until I had made it. Fast forward a couple of weeks later and I finally made it Mmmm, and it was well worth it. One of the nicest tarts ever!

The picture that drove me crazy…

Below, see the recipe as it was printed in the magazine. In ‘notes’, I included how I made it, and the adjustments I made.

Frangipane Apple Tart

PASTRY

200g cake flour

pinch of salt

100 g butter

1 large egg yolk

45ml (3 Tbsp) cold water

FRANGIPANE

125 g butter

100g (1/2 cup) sugar

2 large eggs

50 g cake flour

100g ground almonds, finely crushed

15ml (1 Tbsp) vanilla extract

4 Granny Smith Apples

Juice of 1 lemon

60 ml (1/4 cup) castor sugar

5 ml (1 tsp) ground cinnamon

NAPPAGE (GLAZE)

80 ml (1/3 cup) smooth apricot jam

30 ml (2 Tbsp) water

1. For the pastry, sift the flour and the salt in a large mixing bowl and add the butter. Work the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Add the egg yolk  and water and bring the mixture togethr to form a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry and use it to line the bottom and sides of a greased 22cm springform cake tin. Prick the bottom of the pastry all over with a fork and refrigerate for a further 20 minutes.

4. Preheat oven to 180° C.

5. To make frangipane, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour, almonds, and vanilla extract.

6. Peel and core the apples, then cut in half and slice thinly. immediatelly squeeze the lemon juice all over the apples to prevent discoloration.

7. Spread the frangipane evenly over the pastry and arrange the apple slices on top. Mix the sugar and cinnamon well together and sprinkle over the apples.

8. bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

9. For the glaze, heat the jam and water in a saucepan, stirring until melted. Brush this over the apples while the tart is hot.

10. Serve with custard or ice cream.

Notes:

Pastry: I used 50 g Lurpak butter, and 50 g Canola margarine

Frangipane: I added the zest of 1 lemon to the frangipane. Use the juice of this lemon as indicated in the recipe. I used 100g of butter basically because I ran out. It still worked out well.

Apples: I used 2 granny smith apples, and 2 golden delicious apples. You can clearly see my tart looks nothing like the tart in the magazine Perhaps because I used fewer apples…I ended up only using about 1/2 the apples recommended in the recipe. It still tasted great! Next time I will stuff all the apples in the tart, and see how it turns out.

I gave the tart a light dusting of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Did not use it all.

I halved the recipe for the glaze.