Sweets and drinksBaked GoodsEurope and North Americaabout 1 hour 30 minutes
This Christmas apple shaped puff pastry tart uses puff pastry cut around an apple template, with butter and cinnamon apple slices laid over the top. The pastry shatters into layers while the apples keep their red colour and cinnamon scent.
The hardest part is cooking the apples so the slices stay whole. They go into a heavy pot and are never stirred, only basted by tilting the pot to spoon the juices over the surface, which is how the slices hold their shape and colour. A common slip is cutting the puff pastry while it is still fridge cold, which cracks the edges and stops the layers rising evenly.
This batch weighs about 1.1kg, at roughly 315 calories per 100g.
Method
Cook the apple jam: blend 176g of apple flesh until smooth. Dry mix 2g of NH pectin with part of 36g of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend. Warm the apple to hand temperature, scatter in the pectin mixture, stir well, hold a gentle simmer for exactly 2 minutes, lower the heat and add the rest of the blend with a pinch of salt, take it off the heat to cool for 5 minutes and stir in 6ml of lime juice. This makes about 200g of jam, of which this tart uses 2 tablespoons for the glaze, and the rest goes into a sealed jar in the refrigerator to be used within 2 weeks.
Quarter the 2 Gala apples, cut away the ends and the cores, and slice them 2 to 3mm thick, making the last slices progressively smaller.
Lay each apple slice gently into a heavy pot without tossing them around.
Scatter 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 10ml of rum, 40g of unsalted butter and a pinch of salt evenly over the top.
Cover the pot, set it over low heat and cook for 8 to 12 minutes, tilting the pot now and then to spoon the apple juices over the upper slices.
Draw and cut an apple shaped acrylic template complete with a stem and a leaf, then wipe away any pen marks.
Lay the template on the 500g of puff pastry that has rested at cool room temperature for 1 to 2 hours, and cut around it with the tip of a small knife.
Lift the whole piece of pastry with the template, turn it face down onto a lined baking tray and only then remove the template. Press the stem and the leaf firmly onto the body of the apple.
Mix 2 tablespoons of apple jam with 3 tablespoons of the apple cooking juices and brush it over the whole surface of the pastry, stem and leaf included.
Arrange the cooked apple slices with the larger pieces on the outside and smaller ones towards the middle, building a dome that suggests a real apple.
Beat 1 egg yolk with 1 tablespoon of oat milk and brush it over the pastry border only, not over the apples.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees C with both elements on, then drop it to 195 degrees C and bake for 15 minutes.
Out of the oven, brush on more of the apple jam and cooking juice mixture and dust a little kOBE Monk Fruit Blend over the top.
Tips
Without NH pectin, a little xanthan gum works, and the jam thickens as it cools with stirring.
If the apple jam is too thick, loosen it with the apple cooking juices so it brushes on easily.
Leaving the pot unstirred is what keeps the apple slices red and whole.
Puff pastry needs to rest at cool room temperature before it is cut to shape.
Press the stem and leaf firmly onto the body so they do not lift away during the bake.
kOBE Monk Fruit Blend is a fine powder, so it catches straight away when dusted over the warm tart.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.