Modern French Caramel Apple Tart

If you plan a fancy dinner party or just a sweet date night, this French caramel apple tart made with a shortbread crust, vanilla cream, and caramelized apples on top is the only perfect dessert need. You will thank me for the recipe once you make it.

This easy French apple tart is a fancy apple dessert that revisits the classic Tart Tatine. It combines caramelized Pink Lady^® apples with the acidity of lime zest. The sweetness of apples beautifully harmonizes with the vanilla cream. What is the result? I will leave it for your judgment.

French apple tart

I have already made this tart a few times and even planted edible flowers to decorate the dessert. Yes, the tart looks gorgeous on its own but served with flowers on top, it becomes the most decadent and the most delectable dessert ever!

You will enjoy this easy apple tart recipe! The crust is based on well-known shortbread cookies. They are placed in a food processor, pulsed until crumbs, mixed with melted butter, and then pressed into a tart pan rather than rolled out.

The vanilla cream based on a classic pastry cream is made as easy as one two three.

The only challenging step maybe is to make dry caramel to caramelize apples, but I will guide you through. And yes, you will need apples with the beautiful name Pink Lady®.

Best apples to make an apple tart

For this recipe, I used Pink Lady^® apples which is a trademark name of apples with the registration in Australia. Their cultivar's name is Cripps Pink. These apples are known for high sugars and acids that make them slow to oxidize, or in other words brown, when sliced.

Pink Lady® apples are excellent as a snack, sliced on a salad, and widely used in many apple recipes, including this caramel apple tart.

If you look for a replacement of Pink Lady^® apples, use Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji or Honeycrisp apples. Also, please, read about The Six Best Apples for Baking from Bon Appétit.

How to make dry caramel?

Dry caramel is a sugar, melted and cooked by itself until it liquefies, caramelizes and gets a deep gold color. To make the dry caramel, heat granulated or caster sugar in a saucepan over medium heat to melt.

Swirl the pan over the stove, resisting your desire to stir with a spoon or a spatula. The sugar will start melting, having some large patches of molten sugar. Just continue to swirl the saucepan, the sugar will melt evenly.

Once you get the gold color of the caramel, it is ready. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the caramel onto parchment paper.

If you want to read more about what the dry and wet caramel is, stir or not stir the caramel, and when the caramel is done, read it in the post How To Make Hazelnut Praline Paste.

Why this French apple tart recipe works

1. This shortbread apple tart recipe is easy enough to make: you do not need to roll out the crust, you do not need to blind bake the crust either!
2. Gorgeously topped with shiny caramelized apples, the tart makes one of the most decadent and the most delectable desserts ever.
3. Caramel topping combined with caramelized apples is beautifully paired with the tangy note of lime.
4. This French apple tart highlights autumnal flavors and represents one of the best fall dessert recipes.

Ingredients

For ingredients and detailed instructions, refer to the recipe card below.

Shortbread cookies: either use homemade shortbread cookies or use store-bought shortbread fingers.

Butter: the tart recipe calls for unsalted butter.

Milk: use whole milk for this recipe.

Egg yolks: use large chilled eggs to separate egg yolks from egg whites. You will love this egg separator once you try it!

Sugar: use either granulated or caster sugar.

Corn starch: is it used to make the pastry cream, which is the base for the vanilla cream in the recipe.

Gelatin: use gelatin sheets with a strength of 200 bloom.

Vanilla bean: use the top quality Madagascar vanilla beans that are the most flavorful.

Apples: Pink Lady® apples are the best apples to make the tart since they are slow to oxidize, or simply saying brown, when sliced. To replace Pink Lady® apples, use Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji or Honeycrisp apples.

Lime zest: buy an organic, untreated lime and use a zester grater to make the lime zest. You can replace lime zest with the zest of orange.

Neutral glaze: it makes this caramel apple tart even more dazzling and brings a professional touch to the dessert. You will only use 3.5 oz (100 g) of ready neutral glaze to make the caramel topping. You can omit this step or simply use the only cake glaze instead of making the caramel topping. To make the neutral glaze, please, see note #3 in the recipe card below.

How to make this caramel apple tart

Preheat oven to 355 F/180 C. To make the shortbread cookie crust, place shortbread fingers in the bowl of a food processor and crush until bread crumbs (photo 1). Add melted butter and mix with a rubber spatula or your hands (photo 2).

Transfer the mixture into a rectangular tart pan with removable bottom. Using your hands, pat out cookie crumbs, so they cover the bottom and sides of the pan to meet the edge (photo 3). Then bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookie crust from the oven and bring it to the freezer right away for 30 to 60 minutes.

Keep the oven temperature at 355/180 C. To make caramelized apples, place granulated sugar in a saucepan and bring over medium heat (photo 4).

Swirl the pan with sugar over your stove to get the caramel. Pour caramel onto parchment paper and let it cool down (photo 5). Brake the caramel into pieces and reduce it to powder, using a chopper or a food processor (photo 6).

Peel apples and cut them into big cubes and place them in a dish. Add the lime zest, the caramel powder (photo 7), and mix. Cover the dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Stir halfway through cooking (photo 8). Transfer caramelized apples in a bowl and let them cool down before assembling the tart.

To make the vanilla cream, soak gelatin in cold water for 5 to 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch with a hand whisk (photo 9)

Heat milk, add a whole vanilla bean and infuse for 20 minutes in a covered container. Remove the bean and bring milk to a boil. Then pour hot milk into the egg yolks/sugar/starch mixture stirring constantly. Bring the mixture back to the pan and heat the mixture over medium heat for about one minute, stirring constantly (photo 10).

Remove the cream from heat, add the drained gelatin and mix. Transfer the cream to a bowl and let it cool down to 104 F/40 C or warm to touch. Gradually add the butter cut into small cubes and mix with the spatula (photo 11). Cover the cream with plastic film in contact and refrigerate.

To assemble the tart, take the tart crust from the freezer and keep it in a tart pan. Garnish the bottom of the tart with vanilla cream up to two-thirds (photo 12). Arrange caramelized apples and refrigerate.

To make the caramel topping, place granulated sugar in a saucepan and heat over medium heat to get the caramel. Pour hot water (keep the pan out of the heat and be careful with splashing!) and heat the caramel syrup again for a few seconds.

In a separate saucepan, make a clear cake glaze as directed (see note #3). Let the glaze cool for about one minute and whisk with the caramel syrup. Let it rest until it starts to thicken (photo 13).

Coat apples with the caramel topping using a silicone brush (photo 14). Decorate the tart with edible flowers, gold sugar pearls, or edible gold leaf. Remove the tart from the pan before serving.

Expert tips

1. Replace Pink Lady® apples with Red Delicious, Gala, Fuji or Honeycrisp apples.
2. Coat caramelized apples with the only neutral cake glaze instead of the caramel topping to simplify the cooking.
3. To make the neutral glaze, in a saucepan mix the content (10 g) of Dr. Oetker cake glaze with two tablespoons sugar. Stir in 1 cup cold water. Bring to a boil, let boil over medium heat for 1 minute. Cool for 1 minute, then brush it over apples.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you make this caramel apple tart in advance?

Both the shortbread tart crust and apple tart filling (caramelized apples) can be made one day in advance. Freeze the crust and keep the baked apples covered with a lid in the fridge until the next day.

Do you need to peel the apples?

Although the skin of apples adds some texture to the dessert, you need to peel apples while making this French apple tart.

More tart recipes you will love

• Plum And Hazelnut Frangipane Tart
• Peach Panna Cotta Tart
• French Chocolate Ganache Tart
• Browse all the Tart Recipes

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Recipe card

The nutritional information has been calculated using an online recipe nutrition calculator such as Verywellfit.com and is intended for informational purposes only. These figures should be used as a general guideline and not be construed as a guarantee.

The recipe was adapted from https://www.femmeactuelle.fr/. It was originally published on April 26, 2019. The recipe has been revised to include improved content and photos. All posted pictures are mine.