Almost Al Forno Apple Tart

Al Forno Restaurant in Providence has an amazing apple tart. It's served in a thick creme anglaise and costs about $20, and you have to order it with your dinner because they make it from scratch. Alex Guarnaschelli raved about it on The Best Thing I Ever Ate. We found a recipe for it, and it is surprisingly easy to make. Following some careful analysis, we have pinpointed the reasons for the tart's amazingness.

Reasons why the Al Forno Apple Tart is amazing
1. It is served fresh. When we made this tart, we ate some of it fresh out of the oven - it was flaky, warm, meltingly scrumptious and had a bright tang from the ginger sugar. Just half an hour later, it was cold and not as good. Fascinating.
2. It is served on a pool of creme anglaise. This sauce is the stuff of heaven. It is thick, rich, custardy, simply divine. We tried to recreate this sauce, but our recipe used a lower ratio of yolks to cream so it was runnier. Next time we will put more yolks. You should do the same.
3. The fresh ginger infused sugar that lies between the apples and the crust. Apple stuff always uses cinnamon or ground ginger, but the addition of fresh ginger and omission of muddling spices lets the bright apple flavor shine.
4. Thinly sliced apples. Al Forno uses a mandolin to shave off slices of apple. We didn't have one, so we just cut them paper thin. That is what lets them charge you $20 for one tart.
5. Super awesome flaky sweet crust. This crust is like a flaky pie crust, except that it has sugar in it. The sugar adds some crunch and perfectly complements the buttery flavor of the crust. They should make a perfume of Apple Crust Aroma. We would use it all day.

Al Forno Apple Tart
Adapted from Johanne Killeen | George Germon | Al Forno Restaurant, Providence, RI
Because these tarts are less bothersome to make than a pie — they take all of 30 minutes to make once you have the dough prepared — you can file them under easy-to-make. I bake them for weeknight dinners, brunches, picnics, even late-night snacks.—David Leite

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 pound cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup ice water
2 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
2 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, cut in quarters and sliced paper-thin
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, quartered
Vanilla ice cream, optional

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt until blended. Add the butter cubes and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal with pieces no bigger than small peas, about 13 to 15 one-second pulses. With the motor running, add the ice water all at once through the feed tube. Process for about 10 seconds, stopping before the dough becomes a solid mass. Turn the contents of the bowl onto a work surface, form into four equal-size discs, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for an one hour.

Preheat the oven to 450°F (220°C). On a lightly floured surface, roll out each disc into a 7-inch circle and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Spread one-quarter of the ginger mixture on each tart, then arrange one-quarter of the slices (about half an apple) in an overlapping circular pattern on top, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle the sugar evenly on top of the apples and fold over the borders. Most of the apples will remain uncovered. Press down the dough on the baking sheet, snugly securing the sides and seams to prevent drips. Dot the center of each tart with butter. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the crusts are golden and the apples have begun to brown slightly. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes and serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Dorie's Pear Tart, Take Two

European butter produced a wonderfully light, flaky, verge-of-burnt brown crust.


Changes from Dorie's recipe:
-in frangipane: ground toasted almonds instead of ground blanched almonds, almond extract instead of vanilla
-in crust: European butter (85% butterfat)
-in poaching syrup: 1/4 cup bourbon
-glaze: reduced bourbon/lemon/pear poaching syrup

French Pear Tart inspired by Dorie Greenspan

What fruits can possibly be in season in the middle of winter? Bosc pears from the Ratty, of course! A lot of us might get turned off by their ugly brown skins and sometimes too-hard-to-bite-into textures (just give them two days by your heater vent or next to that borderline mushy banana), but don't pass up these ugly ducklings just yet! With a rejuvenating skin-peel and a soak in a hot boozy syrup, followed by a nestling in buttery vanilla almond cream, even these eyesores can become magnificent swans of fragrant pear-y goodness.


shhh...they don't know you are conspiring to eat them.



Overall, a lovely tart. 90% based on Dorie's recipe, the booze was my addition. Future endeavors may consider:
-cutting the sugar a bit in the almond cream (maybe to 1/2 cup)
-swapping vanilla for almond extract in the filling
-more pears? perhaps under the almond cream
-more crust on the bottom, less on the sides

French Pear Tart
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe
Makes 16ish servings, depending on how many request seconds

For the pears:
4 smallish medium bosc pears, firm but ripe, peeled, stemmed, and sliced in half
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup amaretto

For the almond cream:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
scant 2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup ground blanched almonds
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 large egg
1 teaspoon bourbon vanilla extract
1 partially-baked 9-inch tart (pie) shell, made with Sweet Tart Dough (recipe follows), at room temp
reduced pear poaching liquid, for glazing (optional, recipe below)
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Bring the 4 cups water, 1 cup sugar, lemon juice, and amaretto to a boil in a saucepan just large enough to hold the pears. Add the pears to the boiling syrup, lower the heat so the syrup simmers and gently poach the pears until they are tender when pierced with a knife, about 10 minutes. Cool the pears to room temperature in the syrup (I left them overnight on the counter - they were still warm the next morning and the amaretto flavor was nicely infused).

To make the almond cream: Put the butter and sugar in a food processor and process until the mixture is smooth and satiny. Add the ground almonds and continue to process until well blended. Add the flour and cornstarch, process, and then add the egg. Process for about 15 seconds more, or until the almond cream is homogeneous. Add the rum or vanilla and process just to blend. If you prefer, you can make the cream in a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in a bowl with a rubber spatula. Spread the almond cream evenly over cool pie crust with a spatula and refrigerate until chilled (I did 30 min in the freezer).

Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Core the pears (pull the stringy part out as you core). Pat the pears very dry with paper towels so that their liquid won't keep the almond cream from baking.

Take the chilled cream and crust out of the refrigerator. Thinly slice each pear half crosswise, lift each half on a spatula, press down on the pear to fan it slightly and place it, wide-end toward the edge of the crust, over the almond cream. The halves will form spokes.

Bake the tart for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the almond cream puffs up around the pears and browns. Transfer the tart to a rack to cool to just warm or to room temperature.

Prepare a glaze by bringing the pear poaching liquid to a boil, reducing it to a syrupy consistency (about 5 min on high, check it periodically to make sure it doesn't start caramelizing too much). Brush the glaze over the surface of the tart. Dust with Confectioners' sugar.

Storing: If it's convenient for you, you can make the almond cream up to 2 days ahead and keep it closely covered in the refrigerator, or you can wrap it airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months; defrost before using. You can also poach the pears up to 1 day ahead. Once you've baked the tart, you should be prepared to enjoy it that same day, although chilled leftovers are pretty scrumptious out of the fridge.

Sweet Tart Dough
(also Dorie's)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (4 1/2 ounces) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, confectioners' sugar and salt in the workbowl of a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut in coarsely. Stir the egg, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough forms clumps and curds. Just before your reaches this clumpy stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change - heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface.

Very lightly and sparingly knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. (note: I did this by hand with a pastry cutter - getting an even dough was a challenge - the dough was still dry after adding the egg yolk. I ended up adding 1 tablespoon of heavy cream to make it come together)

Butter the tart pan and press the dough evenly along the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

To partially bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil tightly against the crust. Bake the crust 25 minutes, then carefully remove the foil. Bake for another 3 to 5 minutes, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack; keep it in its pan.

Milky Way Tart and Raspberry Cream Tart

Raspberry cream tart with rum laced pastry cream and caramel-lined almond sugar butter crust. I think I would've preferred a flaky buttery tart shell because it is lighter and more exciting when it shatters in your mouth, but this was deliciously crunchy and buttery too.

The Milky Way Tart is genius. It's supposed to be a thick layer of caramel topped with a billowy, magical layer of whipped milk chocolate ganache. I was too stingy with the caramel, unfortunately. Maybe a little stingy with the cream too. Next time, I would totally use a flaky tart shell, spread at least 1 cm of caramel, and load up on the cream. It would be a dangerous combination.

Milky Way Tart
Adapted from Joanne Chang's Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe

Makes 1 9-inch tart

For the tart shell, use your favorite pie or tart dough recipe, baked off in a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.
For the milk chocolate mousse:

5 ounces milk chocolate, chopped (we used quality milk choco chips)
2 cups (1 pint) heavy cream
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the caramel filling:

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon corn syrup
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the tart assembly:

One baked and cooled 9-inch tart shell (like My Favorite Pie Crust)
3-to 4-inch slab milk chocolate, at warm room temperature, for decorating


Place the chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) in a medium heatproof bowl.

Gently heat the cream with the espresso powder and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. As soon as you see bubbles beginning to form around the edges of the pan, remove it from the heat--don't let the cream come to a boil. Pour over the chocolate and let sit for 1 minute. Whisk until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl (I prefer a metal bowl for faster cooling, and poured it straight into the bowl of my standing mixer). Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until very cold, at least 8 hours and up to 3 days ahead. The mixture needs to be extremely cold in order for it to whip properly, so don't skimp on the chilling time. If you are short on time or generally impatient like me, throw the metal bowl into the freezer and give it a good whisking every 5-10 minutes or so--you can complete the chilling this way in about an hour.

To make the caramel, place the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium saucepan and stir well to combine. Bring the syrup to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until the syrup becomes a deep amber color. Pull the pan from the heat when you see it reaching a deep golden color--it takes only a moment for caramel to go from golden to amber to straight up burnt, so pull it early if in doubt. Stirring constantly with a whisk or heatproof spoon, stir in the cream all at once. Be careful--it will bubble up violently, but keep stirring until the lumps of caramel smooth out once again. Stir in the butter, salt and vanilla. When the caramel is smooth and well-blended, pour it into a small heatproof container and set in the refrigerator to cool and thicken, at least 4 hours or up to 1 week. Again, using a metal container (I use a loaf pan) will cut this time down significantly.

When the cream mixture and caramel have both cooled sufficiently, assemble the tart. Place the tart shell on a serving platter. Spread about three-fourths of the caramel evenly over the bottom of the tart shell. Fit the bowl with the cream mixture onto a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form (or beat with a handheld mixer). Mound the chocolate mousse on top of the caramel and smooth evenly.

Using a vegetable peeler, make chocolate curls from the bar of milk chocolate: warm the bar slightly in the palm of your hand before pulling the peeler across it to get curls instead of just grating the chocolate. Drizzle the tart with the remaining caramel and follow it with a generous sprinkling of chocolate curls. Refrigerate the tart for 30 minutes before serving (or airtight for up to 8 hours).

Pierre Herme's Lemon Cream Tart

my mom: Wow! This is so good! What's in it??

me: uhh, lemon juice, lemon zest, eggs, sugar...yeah that's about it.

my mom: (mouth full) mmmmm...

me: ...oh yea, and some butter.

By some, I mean like 21 Tbsp for the whole recipe. Hehe. But I only made half, so that's only 10.5 Tbsp, so it's healthier right?

This is Pierre Herme's recipe. For those of you who don't know him, he is one naughty boy. First he rubs 1 cup of sugar with the grated zest of three lemons until the sugar is lemon infused. Then he whisks the sugar and lemon with 4 eggs and 3/4 cup lemon juice, and cooks it over a double boiler to 180 degrees and strains it through a fine mesh strainer to make it silky smooth. Then after it cools to 140, he blends it in a blender and chucks 21 gobs of butter at it until it turns into a pale, light, decadent cream. It's blended for 3 minutes after all the butter is added to make it super light and creamy. After the cream is refrigerated in the pre-baked tart shell, it firms up ever so slightly and just melts on your tongue when you take a bite. Sinful? Nah. Naughty? Maybe. Heavenly? Oh yes!

Tartine Tarts

Apple nougatine tart, based on the recipe from the Tartine Bakery book. It is a flaky all butter crust filled with caramelized granny smith and golden delicious apples, tossed with a teeny bit of cinnamon and the juice of a lime (the recipe didn't call for cinnamon and used lemon instead of lime; I used lime just because I was lazy and didn't want to go hunting for a lemon). The tart is topped with an almond nougatine (what the heck is that?) which is made from sliced almonds, egg whites, sugar, and salt. Couldn't be easier!

The trick to a flaky crust? Cook's Illustrated will tell you to use shortening and vodka...but seriously, how are you supposed to bake when you are tipsy and suffering cardiac arrest from trans fats. Listen to Martha Stewart, or Tartine Bakery, and use all butter! The key points:

- Cut butter into 2 cm cubes and freeze for 10 min while you put flour in food processor

- Weigh all ingredients

- Use ice water

- Pulse butter and flour very briefly until you have fat pea-sized clumps. Peas are big! Don't be fooled by their unassuming name. None of this pea-wee nonsense. Fat peas!

- Pour the bare minimum of water in all at once and pulse very briefly until it just starts to clump - Don't wait for it to form a ball in the processor! Squeeze together, and if it holds, you're golden. If it doesn't, sprinkle on a little more water.

- Dump the dough out into a bowl, squeeze once into a dense flat disk, cover with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for a good hour.

- Roll out into disks, and fill tart pans. No stretching the dough! It will shrink when it bakes.

- FREEZE again for 15 minutes, then bake immediately from the freezer in a 385 degree oven with coffee filters weighted down with beans for 25 minutes, then remove weights and bake until golden, at least 5 minutes.

The complete recipe is in Tartine's book. First you peel and core the apples, and then slice them 1/8-1/4 inch thick (I think it's ok if they are different thicknesses because the texture difference is nice). Working in batches, melt 1 Tbsp butter and 2 tsp sugar in large heavy bottomed pan over high heat until sugar starts to caramelize. Add apples, cook until apples soften - remove to a holding bowl. Repeat for all apples, and then toss everything with the juice of a lime or lemon, zest, some salt, and some cinnamon (Tartine did not call for cinnamon). Layer the apples neatly into the shells; it's ok if the apples are still warm. For the topping, mix egg white, sugar, toasted almonds, and pinch of salt until well blended. Spread evenly over tarts. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until topping is just golden and you are salivating. The combination of the buttery flaky crust, tangy sweet caramelized apples, and toasted sweet and savory almonds is amazing.

Too many pictures of the same thing? I think so. But I couldn't resist! This mango tart is very simple. Just Tartine's pastry cream and fresh sliced manila mangoes (I am in love with these! They have a silken texture and an incredible floral, nutty, milky fragrance). Tartine's pastry cream is unique in that it uses whole eggs and milk, rather than egg yolks and half-and-half, so it is lighter and the vanilla flavor is brighter. Next time I might reduce the sugar a little because this was a teeny bit sweet, but delicious. (can't say no to custard!) I didn't have vanilla beans, so I used some vanilla paste.

Fruit tart with mango, strawberries, and bluberries