I recently caught the wonderful film Julie and Julia at the cinema, whereby the title character works her way through Julia Child’s famous cookbook, and burns or ruins almost every dish along the way. I couldn’t help reminisce about my own cooking disasters and triumphs during the course of compiling a number of tween friendly recipes for Girls Only.
Most of the recipes in the book are my own old faithfuls, but some were uncharted territory. There were the black cat cookies that took four attempts to get right, the tarte-aux- pommes that I completely under cooked, the coconut bread that I completely over cooked and then the chocolate mouse that refused to set. (So typically French!) This was of course all in the name of gastronomic research, with only the ones I finally got right, and loved, making it into the book. Enjoy…
Apple Tart (Tarte-aux-pommes)
Ingredients
Melted butter, to grease
1 sheet (25 x 25cm) puff pastry, partially thawed
1 50g pkt almond meal
1 tbs caster sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1 egg white, lightly whisked
1 large golden delicious apple, quartered, cored, (very thinly sliced)
85g (1/4 cup) apricot jam
To make
Preheat oven to 220°C. Brush a baking tray with melted butter. Place pastry sheet on greased tray and score a 2cm border around sheet, only scoring half-way through. Combine almond meal, sugar, cinnamon and egg white, and spread evenly over pastry. Top with an overlapping layer of apple slices. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until apples are tender and pastry is crisp.
Meanwhile, melt jam in a small saucepan over low heat. With a pastry brush, brush the melted jam evenly over apples and pastry. Cut apple tart into quarters. Cut each quarter in half diagonally and serve immediately.
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