Bring Parisian flavor to Thanksgiving dessert with this apple tart

Over the summer, I had an opportunity to visit Paris, and there I stumbled on a bakery with a line of Parisians out the door called Le Pain Retrouvé. It had no sign outside, and inside there was nothing cute or quaint about it like other boulangerie/bakeries we’d seen. Bakers handled dough and called out orders in the oven’s heat. The breads and pastries crowded against a pane of glass, each looking more rustic and beautiful than the last, identified with utilitarian, handwritten signs — breads, cookies, croissants, baguettes and quiches in wooden forms.

The almond croissant, blanketed in powdered sugar with a shatteringly crisp outside and a dense, not-too-sweet frangipane inside, tasted like everything I expected of Paris: refined, traditional, understatedly genius. Ever since, I have been thinking about making a dessert inspired by a French apple tart called “Tarte aux Pommes Normande” with salted butter crust, dense almond filling, and roasted Honeycrisp apples. Thanksgiving will be my moment.

The directions below may seem a little longer than my usual recipe, but I did my best to remove all the fussiest parts of tart-making. The little extra attention to detail here is worth it. The crust requires no rolling. It turns out that frangipane or almond custard is shockingly easy to make. After that, all you have to do is thin-slice the apples. I like Honeycrisp, but you can choose your favorite. You can absolutely make this tart gluten-free by subbing in a cup-for-cup flour blend. If you have a nut allergy, this tart can be made without the almond layer — just use the thin-cut apples and then sprinkle more extra-thin slices to fill the space around them.

You can also change the apple design, arranging thin slices however you’d like (the internet is full of inspiration). One very important thing is that you should never handle a tart pan with removable sides until it’s totally cool. It’s just asking for catastrophe, such as the pan and crust falling apart while you have a hot tart inside. (Ask me how I know.) Instead, always work with a tart pan on a sheet pan. Once it is cool and the filling is set, you should have no problem removing the sides and carefully sliding it off of the bottom of the pan onto a cake plate. This tart can be baked a day ahead and refrigerated.

Apple-Frangipane Tart

Serves 10

Ingredients:

Crust

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 4-ounce stick salted butter, melted

1 to 2 teaspoons water

Filling

3 tablespoons salted butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup almond flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

3 to 4 apples, washed, skin on

a generous pinch of kosher salt

1 tablespoon powdered sugar to garnish

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Ready a sheet pan by covering it with parchment paper.

Make the press-in crust: Whisk flour, sugars and salt in a medium bowl. Pour melted butter into the dry ingredients and work it through with your hands to make a ragged crumble. If the mixture seems dry, add water, a teaspoon at a time. You want to avoid it being too sticky, but you also want all the flour mixture to be incorporated. Once the dough is well mixed, pour about half of it around the inside edges of your tart pan and then press it against the sides, turning the pan as you go and shaping the sides. Pour the rest of the crumbly dough into the center of the pan and press it to cover the bottom. You want the sides to be just a tad thicker than the bottom. You can, if you like, spray the bottom of a quarter-cup measuring cup with non-stick spray and use it to press and smooth the dough along the bottom of the pan. Poke the bottom of the crust with a fork. (This can be done up to a day ahead. And raw crust can be refrigerated.) Now put it on a sheet pan to par-bake it. Place a sheet of foil over the tart, mold it onto the tart crust, pressing it gently around the inside diameter and folding over the top edge. Fill it with raw beans, uncooked rice or pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the pie weights and foil and carefully reshape any parts of the edges that have drooped with your fingers. The tart should cool for at least 15 minutes before you fill it. You can refrigerate it to hurry the process.

Make the filling: In a medium-sized bowl, mix melted butter, almond flour, sugar, egg, pinch of salt and extracts, set aside. Prepare the apples. Cut four apples in half, core them, lay them cut-side down on the cutting board and slice them, holding your knife vertically to the bottom of the apple, very thin. Important, do not cut the apples all the way through. That way the apples stay together. One method for doing this is to place a set of chopsticks, one on the stem top and the other, parallel, at the bottom of the apple half, and slice until the chopsticks stop your knife, leaving the slices attached.

Assemble tart: when the crust is cool to the touch — without removing it from the sheet pan — spread almond filling inside it. Arrange apples evenly on top of the almond filling, thin-sliced sides up, with one in the middle and the other surrounding it, the lines of the thin-cut sides pointing in whichever directions please your eye. The apples will sink into the almond mixture and the mixture will climb the insides of the tart. You may have one half apple extra, depending on the size of the fruit.

Slide the sheet pan with the tart on it into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until it begins to brown, then cover it loosely with foil and bake for 10-15 more minutes, until it appears slightly browned and set in the middle. Allow to cool completely before garnishing by shaking a fine mesh sieve of the powdered sugar over the top.