Food & Drink

Swe-Dishes: Apple And Almond Tart

While it seems like most big-box stores have jumped right from Halloween to Christmas, we have not. Because, hello? Thanksgiving food is the best, and it deserves to be celebrated.

Whether you are someone who mixes everything on your plate and ends up with a bite full of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, turkey and cranberries or you are someone who is picky about his/her food touching, we all can agree on the universal appeal of apple pie.

It screams fall. It screams Thanksgiving. It definitely screams, “eat me warm,” and it probably screams, “plus a little bit of vanilla ice cream never hurt nobody.”

If you are looking to put a Swedish spin on the quintessentially American apple pie, look no further than John Duxbury’s Apple and Almond Tart (äppeltarte med mandelfyllning och tosca) from swedishfood.com. After all, the Swedes love their almonds.

Ingredients

Pastry

• 1¼ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
• 3 tbsp. caster (superfine) sugar
• ½ c. butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 egg yolk

Filling

• ⅓ c. butter, softened
• ⅝ c. ground almonds
• 7 tbsp. caster (superfine) sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 unwaxed lemon, zest and juice
• 2-3 red-skinned apples

Topping

• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. flour
• 3 tbsp. caster (superfine) sugar
• 2 tbsp. liquid glucose (corn syrup would work)
• ½ c. slivered almonds

Method

1. Make the pastry by putting the flour and sugar in a food processor and giving it a few pulses. Add the butter and pulse for 10-15 seconds until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg yolk and process for another 20-30 seconds until the pastry clings together. (If it doesn’t, add a teaspoon or two of cold water.)
3. Roll the pastry out and use it to line a 10” loose-based tart tin. Chill for 30 minutes.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 400°F.
5. Prick the base of the tart and bake for 12 minutes.
6. While the tart shell is baking, mix the butter for the filling with the ground almonds, caster sugar, a large egg and the zest from the lemon.
7. Put the lemon juice in a large bowl.
8. Core and slice the apples very thinly and toss the slices in the lemon juice to prevent them from going brown.
9. When the tart shell is baked, spread the almond filling over the base and then top with the apple slices.
10. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes, until the filling is set.
11. Meanwhile, melt the butter for the topping and then stir in the flour, sugar, liquid glucose and flaked (slivered) almonds. Keep stirring the mixture on a low heat until it starts to simmer.
12. Spread the mixture over the filling and continue baking the tart for a further 10 minutes, until the topping is a light brown toffee color.

Duxbury enjoys cooking Swedish food and went to the trouble of learning Swedish so he could read Swedish cookbooks. The love affair with Swedish food started as a result of numerous visits to Sweden when he was working with Swedish students. When he retired from teaching, he decided to set up http://www.swedishfood.com so other people with an interest in Swedish cooking could benefit from his work.