Quick and easy apple or pear tart recipe

Soon after Ted and I moved to Boston's South End in 1980, we met a woman who lived on Fort Hill, a middle class, not-yet-gentrified enclave of brick row houses in the midst of the low-income, mostly black and Hispanic Roxbury neighborhood. She invited us to dinner, and we had a lovely evening. Then, we called a taxi to pick us up. Our host laughed, and said no cabs would come to her neighborhood at that time of night. She was right, as it turned out, and we waited an uncomfortably long hour-plus until one finally arrived. Fortunately, our awkward exit isn't all I remember about that night; I remember the apple tart she made for dessert. This is it, a bare-bones, apple-lover's, no-gooey-pastry-cream tart best made with crisp apples (and equally delicious made with sweet pears). If you've spent any time here in The Perfect Pantry, you know I don't bake. In fact, I'm a bake-o-phobe. So, when I tell you this pretty tart is super quick and easy, believe me. You can do it.

Quick and easy apple or pear tart

From the pantry, you'll need: puff pastry, lemon, butter, granulated sugar, all-purpose flour.

Ingredients

2 tart apples (Granny Smith, Macoun, Jonathan, etc.), cored (do not peel) and thinly sliced; or 2 large Bartlett pears, cored and thinly sliced
Juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted according to package directions
2 tsp butter, melted
2 Tbsp granulated sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a mixing bowl, combine the apple slices and lemon juice, and toss gently. Set aside.

Scatter the flour on your counter top, and unroll the puff pastry on the flour. With a rolling pin, lightly roll out the creases in the pastry. If there's a small hole, push the pastry together with your fingers to patch it.

Fit the pastry into an 8-inch round, or square or rectangular, tart pan, preferably one with a removable bottom. Press the pastry into all corners of the pan and up the sides, with the excess hanging over the edge. Run your rolling pin across the top of the tart pan to cut the excess away (discard the trimmings, or use for mini tartlets).

With two forks, prick the bottom of the tart dough all over. Don't be shy; make lots of pricks, as these will keep the dough from rising.

Remove the apple slices from the bowl, and arrange them in the bottom of the tart. Paint the fruit with the melted butter, and sprinkle the sugar evenly over the apples.

Bake at 375F for 30 minutes.

Remove the tart from the oven and let it sit on a wire rack for 10 minutes or longer. Remove the outer ring from the pan (sit the whole thing on a can, and the ring will fall away), and place on a serving plate. Serve in wedges, warm or at room temperature.

[Printer-friendly recipe.]

More recipes in The Perfect Pantry:
Apple spice cake
As-American-as apple pie
Sugar-free maple baked pears
Rum raisin pear pie
Apple-pear-cranberry crisp

Other recipes that use these pantry ingredients:
Apple cinnamon buttermilk cake, from Pinch My Salt
Apple turnover panini, from Panini Happy
Strawberry mascarpone tart, from Simply Recipes
French pear tart, from In the Kitchen and On the Road with Dorie
Apples in puff pastry, from No Fear Entertaining

Comments

Simply beautiful, Lydia!

Mmm! Yum! ;-) BTW, those are perfectly sliced apples!

Kathy, Paz: Thanks. I had a friend visiting and she sliced the apples by hand. I usually use a mandoline because I'm not that precise!

that's a tough area to live in for sure.
at least a cab did come. you got lucky.
and yes, sometimes the most simplest of ingredients are enough.

Gorgeous! And sounds easy enough that I could probably do it.

Oh how pretty! I love how the apples swirl in the pastry.

That tart is a thing of beauty. I do not believe that you lack the baking gene.

Vanillasugar, so much has changed in Boston in the time we've lived there (30+ years). Today the area is quite gentrified, but it was different back then.

Kalyn, this is the only fruit tart I make, but I promise it's easy.

Andrea, I confess it took me a while to arrange those apple slices! But that's the only tricky thing about this. I usually bake it in a rectangular tart pan, which makes it easy to arrange the apples in rows instead of a circle.

TW, believe me, I have no baking gene at all.

From one non-baker (well, except for bread) to another - I love this. I've never made a pastry crust but love puff pastry - a blessing for people like us LOL

Any dessert prefaced with "easy" gets my vote!

Oh puff pastry... how I do love thee!!