A few weeks back, the lovely Tartelette posted a delicious-looking recipe for these tartelettes. How scrumptious! But I didn’t plan on making them anytime soon… until I realized that I needed to put together some kind of apple tart to take with me to a dessert-tasting at the cafe I’ll be baking for (which is opening in TWO WEEKS! Hurray!). And I needed it… for the next day. Eek. I pulled this one up and saw that I had everything I needed, so away I went!

Apple Frangipane Tartelettes

(recipe from Tartelette)

Serves 8 (3″ tarts; makes 6 if you use 4″ tart pans, as I did)

Sable Dough:

1 stick (115 gr) butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup (93 gr) powdered sugar

1 large egg

1 1 /2 cups (188gr) flour

2 tablespoons (20 gr) cornstarch (makes for a lighter crumb)

pinch of salt

In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix until combined. Add the flour, cornstarch and salt and mix briefly to incorporate. Dump the whole mixture onto a lightly floured board and gather the dough into a smooth ball. Do not work the dough while in the mixer or it will toughen up. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

When the dough is nice and cold, roll it out on a lightly floured board or in between the sheets of plastic. You will need half the amount of dough to make the tartelettes. The other half can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days or frozen, well wrapped for up to 3 months. Cut out rounds with a 3 inch pastry ring. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes. Let cool.

[Since I don’t have 3″ tart rings, I put the dough circles into my paper tart liners and baked it in there. It came out fine.]

If For the Honey Roasted Apples:

4 medium apples

1/2 cup honey

Preheat the oven to 350F. Peel core and cut the apples in thin slices. Lay them on a couple of parchment paper lined baking sheets and drizzle at will with the honey. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden. Let cool.

[Next time, I’d add another apple. I was running a little short on ‘petals’ by the time tart #6 rolled around]

For the Frangipane Cream:

1 stick (115 gr) butter, softened

1/2 cup (100 gr) granulated sugar

1 cup (100 gr) ground almond

seeds from one vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract

2 eggs

1/4 cup (60gr) heavy cream

Place the butter, sugar, almond powder, vanilla bean seeds and the eggs in a large bowl and whisk until smooth (can also be done in a food processor). Add the cream but stir in it instead of whisking not to emulsify it or it will rise while baking. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Place 8 baked rounds of dough in 8 pastry rings, divide the cream evenly among the rings and bake 20 minutes at 350F. Let cool. Once cooled, remove the tarts from the rings and arrange the apple slices decoratively on top.

Here’s a picture of the tart before arranging apples on top:

And another shot of it all dolled up:

Verdict? These were moderately simple to make, and wonderfully tasty. They were a hit with Jeff and his friend H, and most importantly, with the owner of the cafe! I think these will be going into the case, for sure.