A French Apple Tart is an excellent dessert to have up your sleeve – not literally, unless you like having soggy arms. But seriously, this Apple Tart is perfect for a last-minute dessert as it requires no pre-cooking of pastry or apples. It’s super quick to throw all the elements together and the finished result always looks professional and fancy!
What can I expect?
I decided to make this recipe as I love apple desserts. Like most people, I just couldn’t find a good vegan version of a French Apple Tart. There’s something about the simplicity of a French Apple Tart that I just love. Yet, most vegan versions seem too complicated or long-winded. I’ve brought together three (vegan!) different parts of the recipe (the pastry, the apples & the custard) before putting them altogether in one dessert!
I’d also like to point out that the pastry does not need to be baked in advance, so you can prepare it beforehand and keep it in the fridge until you need to assemble the whole tart. This dessert tastes great warm and served with ice cream. It can also be served at room temperature or reheated the next day! You can also cook the pastry off-cuts for little biscuits which taste great!
A Slice of Life
Each component in its own right can be mastered easily with practice. It will serve you well in the future when making different variations of pies, both savoury and sweet! I’ve opted for an apple pie since I had some apples to hand. Other fruits, such as pears, work rather well too. You could also garnish the finished treat with any berries for that extra pop of nutrition and colour!
You can find this recipe, and all my other quarantine cooking here on our blog, or you can watch a step-by-step video guide over on our Instagram.
So, let’s get started!
Vegan French Apple Tart
Equipment
- 24 cm Fluted Pan
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Pastry Brush, or similar
- Knife
- Chopping Board
- Vegetable Peeler
- Sieve
- Saucepan
- Measuring Jug
- Clingfilm
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
- 300 g Plain Flour
- 200 g Margarine
- 100 g Sugar
- 1 tbsp Cold Water
- Zest of 1 Lemon (optional)
Apples
- 3 Large Apples peeled & cored
- 1 tbsp Margarine
- 1 tbsp Margarine
- 1 tbsp Caster Sugar
- Juice of ½ a Lemon
- Icing Sugar
Custard
- 225 ml Plant-Based Milk
- 1 tbsp Sugar
- 1 ½ tbsp Cornflour
- Dash of Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Pastry
- Place the flour, sugar and margarine in a large bowl. Using your fingers, rub the mixture together to create a crumble. Add the 1 tbsp cold water and use your fingers to mix together into a dough.
- Lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry dough to 0.5cm thickness. Make sure the dough is large enough to fill a 24cm fluted pan.
- Carefully transfer the dough into the fluted pan. This dough is particularly pliable so if there are any tears or gaps, you can use excess pastry to patch them up.
- Don’t trim the edge of the pastry yet, as we want the pastry to relax slightly before we cut off the excess.
- Chill the pastry in the fridgewhilst you make the filling.
Filling
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F
- Peel and core the apples, then cut them into quarters. Now slice each quarter into about 7-8 thin segments. Set aside.
- Melt the margarine, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan to create a fragrant syrup. Set aside.
- Remove the pastry from the fridge and use your rolling pin to roll straight over the top of the pie dish to remove the excess pastry. Alternatively, if you are using a straight-sided pie dish with just a fluted rim, then use a knife to cut off the excess.
- Now fill the base of the pastry with the apple segments.
- Now use the pastry brush to brush the apples and the sides of the pastry all over with the lemon glaze. It will seem like too much, but you’ll understand why we use it all when you take a bite of the finished pie!
- Dust the whole pie generously with icing sugar.
- Bake the tart in the oven for 25 minutes.
For the Custard
- In a measuring jug, whisk together the plant milk, sugar, vanilla and cornflour to create the vegan custard.
- Remove the tart from the oven and carefully pour the custard over the apples.
- Place the tart back in the oven for 15 minutes.
- Remove tart from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Dust with a final coating of icing sugar and serve!