[Almost like my childhood’s tart - Black pepper, honey and apple tart]

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My dad makes the finest apple tart ever. I mean, he truly does.
The crust is thin and crisp. Although, he uses store-bough rolled shortcrust pastry, he gets it paper-thin by making good use of his favourite wooden rolling pin. The apples are soft, sweet and packed with flavour. In order to achieve such perfect results, he finely grates the apples and slightly drains them. Then, he coats them with melted organic honey and a touch of cinnamon. The fragrant apples are finally arranged into the tart crust and baked in a high oven until golden-brown.
Seriously, the best tart ever.

Today, however, I’m not going to talk about my dad’s tart. Nope. Not that it’s a secret or anything. I mean, I just gave you the recipe. So go along with it and lick the juices that are running on your fingers (I guess it’s time for me to admit that I eat most foods with my fingers, ooops).
So today, I’m going to share with you my new favourite apple tart recipe. It is certainly not nearly as classical as my father’s, but it’s damn yummy. Tarte aux pommes rapées, au miel et au poivre noir [black pepper, honey and apple tart].

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If you thought the pictures from those posts were ugly, please welcome these ones with kindness. See, I do screw up with my camera. A lot. And hopefully, other bloggers do too, they just don’t show the said-pictures (please tell me I’m not 100% mistaken). I don’t have a proper excuse, but well, the weather was very cloudy today and my room was dark so I couldn’t get what I was looking for. Anyway, the tart is good. Spicy and sweet. I mean spicy-spicy and fairly sweet.

Tarte aux pommes rapées, au miel et au poivre noir

I must admit that this tart is somewhat original. This, mostly comes from the use of black pepper in the crust.
I make a simple pâte brisée [shortcrust pastry] to which I add caster sugar and freshly ground black pepper. I think the heat brought by the pepper nicely complements the sweetness of the apples and honey.

Tarte aux pommes rapées, au miel et au poivre noir

serves 8

for the crust
200g flour
30g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
100g unsalted butter, cold from the fridge
2tbsp cold water

for the apples
6 cooking apples, finely grated
1 1/2 tbsp honey

In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt and black pepper. Using your fingers, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles rough oatmeal. Mix in the water and knead until the dough comes together. Roll out as thinly as possible and chill for 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a 22cm tart tin with baking paper.

Melt the honey in a saucepan and fold in the grated apples until evenly coated.
Arrange the pastry over the prepared tin and cover with apples. Fold the extra pastry over the apples and bake for 40 minutes or until golden-brown.

Posted by fanny who loves apples and pears, autumn, honey, pepper, recipe inside, tartes and pies, the insane blogger she is (nablopomo)