The Best Classic & Easy French Apple Tart Recipe

Have you ever gazed at the beautiful, glistening fruit tarts in a French patisserie window, with their perfectly arranged fruit and their shatteringly crisp crust, and wished you could create something that elegant at home? This classic, rustic French Apple Tart is your answer—and it’s a surprisingly simple and incredibly rewarding baking project.

This isn’t just a recipe; it’s your guide to mastering a timeless, sophisticated dessert. We’ll show you the secrets to a flaky, all-butter pastry and how to create a beautiful, fanned-apple design that looks like a work of art. Finished with a classic, glossy apricot glaze, this is a show-stopping dessert that proves that sometimes, the simplest things are the most beautiful and delicious.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Recipe Overview: A Taste of a French Patisserie

What makes this French Apple Tart so spectacular is its elegant simplicity. Unlike a deep-dish American apple pie, this is a free-form, single-crust tart that is all about celebrating the simple, perfect harmony of buttery pastry and tender, sweet-tart apples. The recipe uses a classic, from-scratch all-butter pie dough (pâte brisée) and a simple but professional-looking apricot glaze. It’s a stunning and versatile dessert that is perfect served warm for a special occasion or at room temperature for an elegant afternoon treat.

Metric	Time / Level
Total Time	3 hours (includes chilling and cooling)
Active Prep Time	35 minutes
Difficulty Level	Intermediate
Servings	8-10

The Essential Ingredients for a Perfect Tart

This recipe uses a handful of classic, high-quality ingredients where quality makes all the difference.

• The All-Butter Pastry (Pâte Brisée): The foundation of our tart is a rich, flaky, and incredibly flavorful all-butter crust.
  • Cold Unsalted Butter: The absolute key to a flaky crust. It is crucial that your butter is very cold and cut into small pieces. These cold pieces of butter will create steam as the tart bakes, which is what creates all those beautiful, flaky layers.
  • Ice Water: It is absolutely essential that the water you use is ice-cold. This keeps the small pieces of butter in the dough solid, which is the key to creating flaky layers.
• The Apples: The beautiful and delicious star of the show.
  • Granny Smith Apples: A firm, tart apple like a Granny Smith is the perfect choice for this tart. They hold their shape beautifully when baked, preventing a mushy result, and their bright, tart flavor is a perfect balance to the sweet sugar topping and the rich, buttery crust.
• The Apricot-Calvados Glaze: This is the classic, professional finishing touch that gives the tart its beautiful, jewel-like shine.
  • Apricot Jelly or Jam: Apricot is the classic choice for a fruit tart glaze because its pale color doesn’t obscure the beautiful fruit underneath, and its sweet-tart flavor is a perfect complement.
  • Calvados, Rum, or Water: Calvados, a classic French apple brandy, is a fantastic, sophisticated choice that adds a wonderful, warm, and authentic apple flavor to the glaze. You can also use rum or simply water.

Step-by-Step to a Beautiful French Apple Tart

Making this elegant tart is a rewarding process. Follow these detailed steps for a perfect, bakery-worthy result.

Part 1: The Perfect All-Butter Pastry

This recipe uses a food processor for a quick and easy method.

Step 1: In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, add the 2 cups of all-purpose flour, the 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt, and the 1 tablespoon of sugar. Pulse a few times just to combine.

Step 2: Add the 12 tablespoons of very cold, diced butter. Pulse the machine 10 to 12 times, in short 1-second bursts, until the butter is in small bits the size of peas. Do not over-process.

Step 3: With the motor running, pour the 1/2 cup of ice water down the feed tube and pulse just until the dough begins to come together. Stop the machine immediately as soon as the dough forms a shaggy ball.

Step 4: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and gently knead it just once or twice to bring it together into a smooth ball. Form the dough into a flattened disc, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour.

Pro Tip: Do not skip this chilling step! This allows the gluten in the flour to relax (which prevents a tough crust) and the butter to re-solidify (which creates flakiness).

Step 2: Prepare and Arrange the Apples

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Step 2: On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough out into a rectangle that is slightly larger than 10 by 14 inches. Using a ruler and a small, sharp knife or a pastry wheel, trim the edges to create a neat 10×14-inch rectangle.

Step 3: Carefully place the dough rectangle on your prepared sheet pan and place it back in the refrigerator to stay cold while you prepare the apples.

Step 4: Peel, core, and cut your Granny Smith apples in half through the stem. Using a sharp knife or a mandoline, slice the apples crosswise into thin, 1/4-inch thick slices.

Step 5: Remove the chilled pastry from the refrigerator. Now for the beautiful, artistic part! Arrange the overlapping slices of apples in neat, diagonal rows to cover the pastry, leaving a small, 1/2-inch border around the edges.

Step 6: Sprinkle the full 1/2 cup of sugar evenly over the apples, and then dot the top with the 4 tablespoons of small, diced cold butter.

Step 3: Bake to Golden, Buttery Perfection

Bake the tart for 45 minutes to 1 hour, rotating the pan once about halfway through the cooking time.

The tart is perfectly done when the pastry is a deep golden brown and beautifully crisp, and the edges of the apples have started to brown and caramelize.

Pro Tip: Don’t worry if the apple juices and butter create some burnt-looking spots on the parchment paper around the tart. This is normal and a sign of good caramelization!

Step 4: The Finishing Touch – The Apricot Glaze

When the tart is done, remove it from the oven.

In a small, microwave-safe bowl or a small saucepan, heat the 1/2 cup of apricot jelly with the 2 tablespoons of Calvados, rum, or water until it is melted and smooth.

Using a pastry brush, brush the hot apples and the pastry completely with the warm apricot glaze. This will give your tart a beautiful, glossy, professional-looking shine.

Use a large metal spatula to loosen the tart from the parchment paper so that it doesn’t stick as it cools. Allow the tart to cool on the pan on a wire rack.

Serve the tart warm or at room temperature.

Print

Storage and Make-Ahead Tips

This French Apple Tart is a fantastic dessert to prepare for a dinner party.

• Make-Ahead: The pastry dough is the perfect make-ahead component. You can store the raw, wrapped disc of dough in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
• Storage: The finished tart is at its crispiest and best on the day it is made. However, you can store any leftovers, covered loosely, at room temperature for up to 2 days.
• Reheating: To bring back some of the crispiness of the crust, you can gently reheat individual slices in a 350°F oven for about 5-10 minutes.

For more recipe follow my Pinterest account

Creative Recipe Variations

This simple and elegant tart is a wonderful base for your own delicious and creative twists.

1. Use a Different Fruit: This classic French tart technique is also absolutely stunning with other thinly sliced fruits that hold their shape well. Try it with firm pears, plums, or apricots.
2. Add a Layer of Almond Frangipane: For a richer, nuttier, and even more authentic French patisserie-style tart, you can spread a very thin layer of almond frangipane (a simple almond cream made from almond flour, sugar, butter, and egg) on the pastry before you arrange the apples.
3. Add a Sprinkle of Classic Spice: For a more American-style flavor profile, you can toss the sliced apples with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg before you arrange them on the pastry.

Enjoy a True Taste of French Elegance!

You’ve just created a truly special, sophisticated, and stunningly beautiful dessert that is a masterpiece of simple, classic baking. This French Apple Tart, with its incredibly flaky all-butter crust and its beautifully arranged, tender apples, is a rewarding project that is guaranteed to impress. It’s a timeless dessert that is perfect for any occasion.

We hope you enjoy every last, perfect, flaky, and delicious bite!

If you enjoyed making this recipe, please leave a comment below or share it with a friend who loves to bake!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)