I still am not rolling out pie dough so I did my favorite shortbread cookie crust made in my stand mixer in a few minutes with no real work. This simple press in crumb recipe by Annalise Roberts is sweet and has a perfect texture. And so easy… There were still apples from our fall picking expedition so that seemed to be what I could plan a family dessert around.

I had a bag of whole almonds that needed to be used up.  So, I went with the classic frangipane filling under thin slices of Granny Smith apples. I used the almonds to make my own almond paste (the recipe is a blog post by me last year) but you can buy some if you prefer. I pre-baked the crust as I feared the almond filling might make the raw crust

The tart was a rousing success; the crust tasted delicious; the almond filling fused the skinny apple slices into the crust as a cohesive whole that was delightfully almondish!

Notes: I used Granny Smith as they hold their shape under oven heat; some baking apples can mush down too much. Don’t change that or you might end up with a saggy top.

Apple Frangipane Tart with Cookie Crust

 

Ingredients:

CRUST:

1 cup gf flour (King Arthur basic gf blend)

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp. xanthan gum

¼ tsp. cinnamon

5  Tbsp. cold butter

FILLING:

8 oz almond paste

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 butter, softened

2 eggs

3 Tbsp.  KA basic gf blend

3 cups of peeled, cored and thinly sliced Granny Smith apples (3 large  apples)

1 Tbsp melted butter

1 Tbsp. coarse sugar for topping

DIRECTIONS: Crust: use a stand mixer; put dry ingredients in bowl, add cut up butter and mix on medium until crumbly. Spray 9 inch tart pan with cooking spray and press in crust, heat oven to 375 degrees.  My pan has a removable bottom but I don’t see why you couldn’t use a plain pan.  Bake crust 6-7 minutes; let cool while you make filling.

Filling: Mix filling in medium bowl; put almond paste (break up if chunky: can grate it if hard) and sugar. Mix a bit, add butter; mix well, add eggs one at a time, beat well between eggs and 3 minutes after second egg; add flour; chill. Gently spoon into tart pan on cooled crust, fan out apple slices in circles or any pattern you like, brush with melted butter and sprinkle top with coarse sugar.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake on lowest shelf in oven, 35-40 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool at least 30-60 minutes before serving. Best eaten within 2 days; I thought it was actually even better the next day. Vanilla ice cream is great with apple tart! Enjoy.