From Paris Sweets: Toast-Point Apple Tart, Tarte aux Pommes au Pain de Mie

Toast-Point Apple Tart adapted from Lenôtre via Paris Sweets

Sometimes we play the warm spice theme a little too often with apple desserts. I’m certainly guilty of adding cinnamon and its friends with nary a second thought.

It’s as if we forget that apples are worthy enough to stand on their own.

And that’s why a nonspicy take on apples can be a welcome change.

Consider this Toast-Point Apple Tart from Lenôtre, which appears in Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets.
Sliced apples are baked in a caramel cream. It’s appley, but not apple-ginger-nutmeg-cinnamoney.

And it’s sweet and custardy, a bit like apple pie and ice cream flavors.

Raisins and walnuts are strewn about, just in case there wasn’t enough textural interest going on.

From Paris Sweets: A Good Pie Crust Will Change Your Life

Tart au Chocolat from Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

For a long time, I did not like pie crust. It could be bland or soggy or dry or burned—or all of those failings at once. Pie crust became the necessary and mostly ignored container for creamy or fruity filling that were eaten first. Some were homemade crusts but many were those things from the grocery store that, while convenient, just tasted a little off.

But once I tasted a crust made with butter, that made all the difference. Through the pleasures of travel, reading and pastry consumption, I’ve sampled different types of crusts. In French cooking, for instance, there are four basic breeds. Pâte fuilletée is puff pastry. Pâte brisée is your classic all-butter pie crust, perfect for savory or sweet fillings. Pâte sucrée and pâte sablée are for desserts. Both contain sugar, but a pâte sucrée also has whole eggs or egg yolks. It isn’t too far from what we know as a sugar cookie. A pâte sablée is flour, butter, sugar—essentially shortbread dough—pressed into a pie pan. This will be more crumbly, like a shortbread cookie. (A sablé, in fact, is French name for shortbread cookie.)