Apple-Almond Tart

Mr T loves apples and we brought a full box back from the Apple & Cider Festival in Caher a few weeks back. We stored them cool and they were still looking quite good - but we knew we had to finish them soon. Quite a few of them landed in my famous tomato chutney but of course I also had something sweet in mind. Looked through the cupboard and found some ground almonds - so an apple almond tart came to mind.

The result was lovely - light, appletastic and Mr T ate the whole tart in one day (and that is not a joke). So you are warned that this might not last long at all.

A quick word to blindbaking - I used 2 smallish tart cases (but you can just use one large one) and had only enough baking beans for one. Since copper is a fantastic heat conductor so I filled one case with my collected coins of 5, 2 and 1 cents. Worked a treat.

Here is what you need:

Apple & Almond Tart

• Shortcrust pastry (enough to fill your tart case)
• 4 medium eating apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
• 2 tbsp of calvados (optional but it brings a nice addition to it)
• 1 orange (juice & zest)
• 125g melted unsalted butter
• 225g ground almonds
• 2 eggs
• 75g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line the tart case with the pastry, cover with baking paper and fill with either baking beans or coins and blindbake for about 15 mins and remove the baking beans/coins and bake for a further 5-8 mins (if you want to avoid the edges to get too dark, cover them with foil when returning to the oven).

In the meanwhile - Mix the chopped apples with the calvados, juice and zest from the orange. I another bowl, stir together the melted butter, ground almonds, eggs and sugar. Combine with the apple mixture and spoon it into the baked pastry case. 

Bake for about 20-30 mins (depending on your oven) until the almond mix has risen up and the top has a lovely golden colour and is set. 

If you like you can sieve some icing sugar over the top when cooled. 

Bon Appetit