An apple (recipe) a day
What a year for apples! Our apple tree is now five years old, which means it has reached full maturity, resulting in a bumper yield this year. The question is, what to do which my hoard of apples? Well, I definitely worked my way through a number of options: tarte tatin, apple pie, apple crumble, apple crumble pie (no, I didn’t make this up), apple juice, apple kouign amann (ok, I did make this one up), apple sauce, the list goes on…
I was actually wooed by two recipes: one for an apple tart bouquet with almond cream, and another for individual apple pastry roses. I favoured the individual roses, but fancied including the almond cream from the first recipe for added flavour, so I translated both and baked a hybrid of the two, much like our apple tree grafted with different strains.
Translation
As always, the titles called for some consideration. ‘Tarte aux pommes bouquet de roses à la crème d’amandes’ literally translates as ‘bouquet of roses apple tart with almond cream’, which is quite a mouthful. I opted for the simpler ‘rose apple tart’, leaving the almond cream as a surprise. It seems unnecessary to explain too many ingredients in the title.
‘Roses feuilletées aux pommes’ literally means apple puff pastry roses. Several options exist for this type of pastry, such as ‘apple rose tarts’, ‘baked apple rose tarts’ and ‘puff pastry apple roses’. In the end I went for short and sharp with ‘apple roses’, for more emphasis on the rose and apple, rather than the pastry.
‘Foncer un moule ou un cercle de pâtisserie’ means to ‘line a mould or tart ring’. A mould isn’t exactly what is required here, but rather a shallow dish. Furthermore, circular tart rings are often seen in France instead of a full tin, as a baking tray already provides the base. However, they aren’t something we see very often in the UK. My suggestion is ‘line a flan dish or tart tin’, to convey the shallow tin required.
The baker is required to ‘ôter le cœur’ from the apples, literally ‘remove the heart’, i.e. to core the apples.
The recipe refers to ‘lamelles de pomme’ which can mean slivers of apples. This highlights how thin they have been sliced, but I decided that ‘apple slices’ works here.
Baking
The recipe calls for classic ingredients which are easy to source. Although it does specify a preference for pink-skinned apples for aesthetic purposes, this isn’t strictly necessary as the rose shape shows through nicely anyway.
Apple and almond is a very appetising combination, especially as the winter days are drawing in. It’s very satisfying to make something visually appealing, while warming. Cooking with fruit has the added benefits of being both refreshing and contributing towards one of your five a day. So, how do you like them apples?
