Apple, Pastry Cream and Hazelnut Tart

By casamia-inlondon.com on March 21, 2013 • ( 0 )

The life of a girl (shall I say a woman?!) in her late 30s is basically all about kids. Her life goes around her little monsters. These girls, the Sciure (find definition of ‘Sciure’ in http://casamia-blog.com/2013/02/14/heart-shaped-talian-cookies/ ) of course have kids. There are some boys and some girls. When there are boys and girls, no matter what age they are, there’s love in the air. And when the Sciure start to behave like proper mothers –in-law …that’s when the play begins.

Apple Pastry Cream Hazelnut Tart

So, Mstr Toughie is (was he?!) very fond of Miss Cutie and Mstr Pippi is very fond of Miss Cutie too. She is very girlish and acts like a lady, without displeasing anybody. Their mums are close friends, what if they became in-laws??? The world is plenty of mothers-in-law quotes…there must be a reason!!Can you imagine an Italian mother in law? Italians are very jealous and closed to their family of origin. There is no Italian mum – not even those half Italian/half foreigner 😉 – not jealous of her boy! And what if one of these kids (like for example… Mstr Toughie!?) starts acting as in a proper love affair and pretends (or is it true?!) to be in a love affair with someone else?! Maybe just to call Miss Cutie’s attention?!

The main question is ‘are these mums going to laugh about it or are they going to act like ex in-laws, not even mentioning what is going on between the kids when, in fact, they are actively organising strategic play dates to push the relation one way or the other?!?’ 😀

Anyhow, it might be the right time for Mstr Pippi to take advantage of the situation and ascend the throne. Who knows if Miss Cutie is now able to decide. For sure, what we know is that as soon as the adorable little preppy girl arrived at CASA MIA for a play date, yesterday afternoon, the first question she asked was: is Mstr Toughie here??? So, LOVE IS IN THE AIR…indeed!

These 3 and half years old kids know better than us how life goes ..

To calm down these hot spirits, we had tea and apple tart…even if – while tea time – Miss Cutie and Mstr Toughie’s mums have been heard muttering in another room… 🙂

Apple Tart

Ingredients for a 11” mould

Sweet Pastry

200 gr Butter

120 gr icing sugar

50 g egg yolks

1 lemon zest, grated

260 gr plain flour

60 gr potato flour

Apple Compote

6 cooking apples

70 gr caster sugar

30 gr butter

1 lemon juice

70 gr roasted chopped hazelnut

Pastry Cream

166 ml whole milk

30 gr caster sugar

50 gr egg yolks

10 gr flour

10 gr cornflour

Decor

3 brae burn apples (peeled and thinly sliced)

40 gr melted butter

Method

Turn your oven on at 180°.

Sieve the flour and the potato flour together.

Cream the butter and the sugar.

Beats the egg yolks and add them to the butter mixture, by inclusion.

Then add the flours and the lemon zest.

Mix everything together and rest for at least 20 minutes.

When the dough has rested, roll out the pastry until the dough is around 4 mm thick.

Dot the dough and, rolling the dough onto the rolling pin, lay it into the shape of the mould.

Blind bake it for 20 minutes, until the pastry is cooked but not colored.

To see what is blind baking see this post http://casamia-blog.com/2013/03/06/chocolate-and-pears-tart/ )

In the meanwhile, cook the apples.

Peel and cut them in regular cubes. Then coat them in lemon juice to prevent discolouring.

In a large shallow pan over medium heat, cook the apples, add the sugar after a few minutes.

Let the mixture stew until the cubes are cooked through. Add a bit of water if too dry.

When ready, let them cool down to room temperature in a tray.

Prepare the Pastry Cream:

In a saucepan, combine milk and half of the sugar. Warm the mixture up.

Beat the egg yolks with remaining sugar until pale.

Sieve the flour and cornflour together and add this to the yolks mixture until mixed.

Pour a bit of the hot milk onto the mixture and then return everything to the pan, all together.

Cook it and bring to boil, whisking very fast to prevent scorching.

Once ready, mix the cream with the apple cubes and the chopped hazelnuts altogether.

Pour this mixture onto the cooked sweet pastry.

Place overlapping slices of apples, starting from the edges of the sweet pastry, and keep overlapping until the tart is totally covered with slices.

You can slice ingredients using a slicing disc fitted inside your food processor or the side blade of a 4 sided grater.

Brush the apples with butter.

Bake for another 20/25 minutes, until brown.

Allow to cool and serve warm.

(A nice alternative to butter could be apricot jam and calvados: when the tart is done, heat the apricot jam – approx 150 gr – together with the calvados – approx 2 tbsp – and brush the apples and the pastry completely with the jam mixture).