Easy French Apple Tart: A Classic Dessert with Crisp Pâte Sablée

Indulge in the timeless elegance of this classic French Apple Tart, a truly delightful dessert that perfectly balances simplicity with sophisticated flavors. Featuring a buttery, crisp shortcrust pastry (known as Pâte Sablée), this tart is filled with a smooth layer of homemade applesauce and artfully topped with thinly sliced fresh apples. It’s an ideal treat for the colder months, holiday gatherings, or simply when you crave a comforting and impressive homemade dessert.

Why You’ll Adore This French Apple Tart

If you’ve been searching for an effortlessly elegant yet surprisingly easy apple tart recipe, look no further! This French apple tart is a showstopper that consistently impresses, making it perfect for dinner parties, potlucks, or cherished holiday celebrations. Served warm, perhaps with a generous scoop of vanilla bean ice cream or a dollop of freshly whipped cream, it transforms into an unforgettable experience.

While similar in its delightful apple and applesauce flavors to simpler versions like a Puff Pastry Apple Tart or Mini Apple Tarts, this recipe truly shines with its superior base. Our Pâte Sablée (sweet shortcrust pastry) provides an exquisite, crunchy, and buttery foundation that elevates the entire dessert. It’s a step up in texture and richness, offering a satisfying contrast to the soft, sweet apple filling.

Key Ingredients for the Perfect Apple Tart

Crafting a truly exceptional French apple tart begins with selecting quality ingredients. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll need and why each component is crucial:

For the Pâte Sablée (Sweet Shortcrust Pastry):

• Plain / All-Purpose Flour: Provides the structural foundation for your tart crust. Don’t overmix to keep it tender.
• Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar): Contributes to the pastry’s delicate sweetness and fine, tender crumb.
• Unsalted Butter (very cold): The key to a flaky and tender Pâte Sablée. Keeping it very cold and cutting it into small cubes ensures it doesn’t fully incorporate into the flour, creating pockets of steam during baking for that desired flakiness.
• Large Egg: Acts as a binding agent, bringing the dough together and adding richness.
• Pinch of Fine Table Salt: Crucial for balancing the sweetness and enhancing the overall flavor of the pastry.

For the Apple Tart Filling:

• Applesauce: This forms the delightful base of your tart, providing a soft, sweet layer. While store-bought works, homemade applesauce offers a superior, fresher flavor. You can use either sweetened or unsweetened, and choose smooth or chunky based on your texture preference. If using unsweetened, you might want to add a little sugar or spice to taste.
• Fresh Apples: The star of the show! I highly recommend using Pink Lady Apples for their superb balance of sweet and tart, and their ability to hold their shape beautifully when baked. However, the choice of apple significantly influences the final taste.
  • For a stronger, more acidic profile, consider Granny Smith.
  • If you prefer a lot of sweetness, opt for varieties like Crispin or Golden Delicious.
  • Other excellent choices include Gala, Jonagold, Fuji, or Honeycrisp, which offer a good balance of flavor and texture.

  For a comprehensive guide to selecting the perfect fruit, make sure to consult my “Best Apple for Baking Guide” to ensure you pick the right apple for your taste and your dessert!

• Lemon Juice: Essential for two reasons: it prevents the thinly sliced apples from oxidizing and turning brown, and it adds a subtle brightness that cuts through the sweetness of the apples.
• Unsalted Butter (melted): Brushed over the apple slices before baking, this adds a rich flavor and helps the apples achieve a beautiful golden-brown caramelization.
• Apricot Jam (or Apricot Jelly – optional): A simple yet powerful ingredient. When warmed and brushed over the baked apples, it provides a gorgeous sheen, making the tart look professionally finished, while also adding an extra touch of delicate sweetness and moisture.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Make an Apple Tart

Creating this stunning French apple tart is a rewarding process, broken down into two main stages: preparing the pastry and assembling the filling.

Making the Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (Pâte Sablée)

The Pâte Sablée is the foundation of this tart. It’s tender, crumbly, and wonderfully buttery. While a food processor makes this quick work, you can also achieve excellent results by hand.

• Prepare Dry Ingredients: In the bowl of your food processor, combine the Plain/All-Purpose Flour, Icing Sugar, and a pinch of Fine Table Salt. Pulse briefly to ensure they are well mixed.
• Incorporate Butter (Photo 1): Add the very cold, cubed Unsalted Butter. Pulse the food processor in short bursts for just a few seconds until the butter is broken down into very small, pea-sized crumbs. The goal is to distribute the butter without fully melting it, which is crucial for a flaky pastry. Avoid over-processing at this stage.
• Add Egg (Photo 2): Pour in the Large Egg. You can pre-whisk the egg in a separate bowl first for more even distribution, but it’s not strictly necessary.
• Form Dough (Photo 3): Mix for approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute. The dough should start to come together into a rough, crumbly mass. When you press a small amount of this dough between your fingers, it should hold its shape and feel smooth. Be careful not to overmix, as this can develop the gluten in the flour, leading to a tough crust.
• Roll and Chill (Photo 4): Gather the rough dough into a large ball and flatten it slightly with your hands. Place the dough between two sheets of baking paper (parchment paper). Using a rolling pin, roll the dough evenly into a large circle, aiming for a thickness of about 4 mm (1/6 inch). This parchment paper method makes handling the dough much easier. Transfer the rolled pastry, still between the paper, onto a flat tray and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 24 hours. Chilling is vital to prevent shrinkage during baking and makes the dough easier to work with.

Tip for Hand Mixing: If you don’t have a food processor, you can achieve similar results by hand. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the cold butter cubes and cut them into the flour mixture using your fingertips or a Pastry Blender until you have fine crumbs. Then, add the egg and mix until a dough just begins to form.

• Line the Tart Pan (Photo 5): Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes until it’s slightly pliable but still firm. Carefully peel off one sheet of baking paper and invert the pastry into a 24 cm (9.5 inch) tart pan. Gently press the pastry along the bottom and up the sides of the pan, ensuring a sharp 90-degree angle where the base meets the sides. This helps create a professional-looking tart. Trim any excess dough from the edges using a small knife or by rolling your pin over the top.

  For best results: Use a perforated tart pan with a removable bottom. The perforations allow for better airflow, ensuring a perfectly crisp crust.

• Second Chill: Place the lined tart pan back into the fridge for at least 2 hours, or ideally, overnight (up to 24 hours). This crucial chilling period helps the butter firm up again and the gluten relax, which prevents the pastry from shrinking during baking.
• Blind Bake (Photo 6): Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius / 325 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven preheats, dock the bottom of the chilled pastry with a fork (poke small holes all over). This allows steam to escape, preventing the crust from puffing up. For an extra crisp crust, place the tart crust in the freezer for 10-15 minutes just before baking. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill it with baking weights (or dried beans/rice). Bake for 10 minutes. Then, remove the weights and baking paper and continue to bake for another 15 minutes, or until the pastry is lightly golden. This blind baking step ensures a firm, crisp base that won’t get soggy from the applesauce. Let it cool completely before filling.

Assembling the Tart Filling

Now for the delicious apple layers that bring this tart to life!

• Prepare Apples (Photo 7 & 8): Peel, core, and cut your chosen apples into quarters. Using a sharp knife or, for best results, a Mandoline Slicer, thinly slice each apple quarter into very uniform pieces. The thinner and more consistent the slices, the more beautiful your tart will be. Place the sliced apples in a bowl with the Lemon Juice and gently toss to ensure all slices are coated, preventing browning.
• Add Applesauce Base (Photo 9): Pour your applesauce into the par-baked tart pastry. Use a spatula or the back of a spoon to spread it out into an even layer, covering the entire bottom of the crust.
• Arrange Apples (Photo 10): This is where the artistry comes in! Begin arranging the thinly sliced apples in concentric circles over the applesauce, starting from the outer edge of the tart and working your way towards the center. Slightly overlap each slice to create a layered effect. Once you reach the center, you can create a beautiful “rose” pattern by rolling a few slices tightly together and placing them in the middle of the tart.

  Tip for Softening Apples: If your apple slices are too stiff to form a rose shape without breaking, place them in a small, microwave-safe bowl filled with a little water and microwave for a few seconds. This will soften them slightly, making them more pliable. Just be sure to drain them thoroughly before adding to the tart.

• Brush with Butter: Gently brush the arranged apple slices with the melted unsalted butter. For an extra layer of flavor and a slightly sweeter, spiced crust, you can optionally sprinkle the apples with a little sugar, or even mix the melted butter with a pinch of sugar and cinnamon before brushing.
• Bake: Bake the tart in your preheated oven at 160 degrees Celsius / 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the apples are tender when pierced with a knife and the crust is golden. Keep an eye on the tart; if the apples begin to brown or burn too quickly, you can slightly reduce the oven temperature or loosely cover the tart with aluminum foil.
• Apply Glaze (Optional): Immediately after removing the tart from the oven, for that professional shine and extra sweetness, brush the warm apple slices with a mixture of apricot jam that has been diluted with a tiny bit of water (warm the jam gently if needed to make it more liquid).

Frequently Asked Questions About French Apple Tart

Storing Your French Apple Tart

This exquisite apple tart is truly at its best when enjoyed fresh, ideally within 24 hours of baking. The applesauce filling, being naturally moist, will gradually soften the crisp Pâte Sablée crust over time. While this doesn’t diminish the flavor, the texture will evolve. If you don’t plan to devour it all at once, I recommend storing the tart in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours for optimal texture and freshness. Before serving leftovers, a brief reheat in a low-temperature oven will help restore some of the pastry’s crispness and warm the apples through, bringing back that freshly baked aroma and taste.

Freezing Recommendations

While almost anything *can* be frozen, I generally do not recommend freezing this particular French apple tart once it’s fully baked. The delicate nature of the applesauce filling and the thinly sliced fresh apples means that the tart’s texture and appearance can suffer significantly after freezing and thawing. The apples might become watery and mushy, and the pastry could lose its desired crispness, becoming soggy.

However, you can prepare the Pâte Sablée pastry in advance and freeze it unbaked, securely nestled in its tart tin. When you’re ready to bake, there’s no need to thaw the pastry completely before blind baking; simply add an extra 5 minutes to the blind-baking time to account for it being frozen. This is a fantastic time-saver for busy bakers!

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“Bite-Sized French Pastries for the Beginner Baker”
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Recipe Card: Easy French Apple Tart

Easy French Apple Tart

4.91 from 10 votes

This easy French Apple Tart with shortcrust pastry (pâte sablée) is a delicious dessert to make in Winter and for the Holidays, combining a shortcrust pastry, applesauce filling and thinly sliced apples.

Servings:
12 people

Author:
Sylvie

Prep Time
45 minutes mins

Cook Time
1 hour hr

Resting Time
3 hours hrs

Total Time
4 hours hrs 45 minutes mins

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Ingredients

Shortcrust Pastry (Pâte Sablée)

• 250 gr Plain / All-purpose Flour
• 50 gr Icing Sugar
• 1 pinch Fine Table Salt
• 120 gr Unsalted Butter, very cold, cubed
• 1 Egg

Apple Tart Filling

• 3 small Apples
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
• 350 gr Applesauce, preferably homemade
• 20 gr unsalted butter, melted

Glaze (optional)

• 1 tablespoon apricot jam
• 1/2 tablespoon water

Instructions

Shortcrust Pastry (Pâte Sablée)

• In your food processor, combine the flour, icing sugar, and salt. Pulse to mix. Add the very cold, cubed butter and pulse briefly until you achieve a fine crumb texture with no large butter lumps remaining.
• Add the egg (pre-whisked is ideal) and blend slowly for 30-60 seconds until a rough dough starts to form. Avoid overmixing. The dough should hold together when pressed (see note 1). Remove the dough and gently form it into a ball.
• Place the dough ball between two sheets of baking paper. Roll it into a large circle, approximately 4mm (1/6 inch) thick. Transfer the rolled pastry on a flat tray to the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour, or up to 24 hours.
• Remove the baking paper and carefully place the pastry into a 24 cm (9.5 inch) tart pan. Gently press the dough along the pan’s edges and corners to form a crisp 90-degree angle. Trim any excess dough with a small knife.
• Return the lined tart pan to the fridge for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight, to chill thoroughly (see note 2).
• Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius / 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Dock the base of the pastry with a fork. Line with baking paper, fill with baking weights, and blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove weights and paper, then bake for another 15 minutes until lightly golden. Allow to cool completely.

Apple Tart Filling

• Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples using a mandoline or a sharp knife. Place the slices in a bowl with lemon juice and toss gently to coat, preventing browning.
• Spread the applesauce evenly over the cooled, par-baked pastry crust using a spatula or spoon.
• Arrange the apple slices in neat, overlapping circles over the applesauce, starting from the outer edge and working inwards. For the center, roll a few slices to form a rose pattern and place it in the middle.
• Brush the arranged apple slices generously with the melted butter.
• Bake the tart at 160 degrees Celsius / 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the apples are tender and the tart is golden brown.

Glaze (optional)

• For a beautiful shine, mix the apricot jam and water in a small bowl. Immediately after taking the tart out of the oven, use a pastry brush to gently glaze the warm apple slices.

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Notes

1. At this stage, you should observe a mixture of large lumps and crumbs of dough. When pressed in your hands, these lumps should stick together, indicating the correct consistency. It’s important to avoid over-mixing the pastry to maintain its tender texture.
2. For the absolute best results and to prevent any shrinkage, I highly recommend chilling the pastry-lined tart pan overnight. However, it can be kept refrigerated for up to 24 hours before you proceed with baking.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 217kcal | Carbohydrates: 30g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 39mg | Sodium: 12mg | Potassium: 93mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 343IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 12mg | Iron: 1mg

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