Culinary Vices ~ Buttered Apple Tart

This challenge could not have come at a worse time for me. Spending December and January sitting in front of a computer to meet my deadline had me eating all sorts of naughty foods. As a way to get back on track and my body back in balance, I chose to give up meat, as well as any added sugars and fats, for four weeks. Unfortunately, this challenge fell right in the middle of that time. Just the description of the challenge had my mouth watering!
But what could I make that would fulfill the challenge and not be absolutely detrimental to my temporary insanity new goal? I opted for a fruit-based dessert, a buttered tort. Though it seems to be more of an apple custard.

The Challenge:

Culinary Vices January 15 – January 28
Some foods are really, really naughty. Globs of butter, lashings of sugar and syrup, decadent chocolate and wine. Bring out your naughty, indecorous side with foods associated with all the bad things, in the best ways.

The Recipe:

The recipe itself came from the book Dinner with Mr. Darcy and is adapted from the Buttered Tort recipe (seen above) from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.

The Date/Year and Region: 

The original recipe comes from The Art of Cookery which is dated from 1774 England.

How Did You Make It:

This recipe is a two-step process. Step one is to make the crust and step two is to make the actual tart. Following the recipe from Dinner with Mr. Darcy I spaced it over two days. One to make and chill the crust, and the next to make the custard tart.



The crust was simple enough to make, Mix the dry ingredients – flour, salt – then add the water, egg, butter. Blend with your fingers until a turns to dough. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and let chill.
 

The actual custard filling in a little more involved, but just as easy. Peeling, coring and slicing the apples was tedious and made a previous hand injury flair up. Once that was done, I let them cook down over medium heat with some water until they turned somewhat mushy. I did not cook them down into apple sauce, but only until all were softened and maintained their shape.
While the apples cooked down, I separated the eggs, whisked the yolks, and zested & juiced the orange. All that was set aside while the apples cooked. Using an electric whisk, I beat the egg whites as directed until they formed stiff peaks.
Once the apples were soft, I added the orange juice and zest, sugar and freshly grated nutmeg, folded it all together and set it aside. While that cooled, I tackled the crust, removing the dough ball from the refrigerator and rolling it out to about 1/4 inch thick, and laid it in the pie dish and trimmed the edges. The cooled egg yolks were added to the apples and folded together, then the entire mixture was folded together with the beaten egg whites. I spooned it into the prepared pie crust and used some extra apple slices to top the tart and baked it for about forty minutes at 350F, ten minutes longer than what the recipe calls for.

Time to Complete: 

The dough took approximately 5 minutes to mix together. While it is supposed to chill for twenty minutes, I let it chill overnight.
Once the prep work was done, the custard took about fifteen to twenty minutes to complete, and baked for about forty minutes.
From start to finish the entire dish took about one hour.

Total Cost: 

I had all the ingredients at home except the apples. Total cost for five apples (approximately two pounds) was only $2.

How Successful Was It?:

I wish I could say how well this turned out, but since I didn’t eat any, I can’t say for sure.
What I do know is that it smelled AMAZING! There is something about the combination of nutmeg, apples and orange that is magic to the olfactory senses. It also looked really pretty when removed from the oven. The addition of the sliced apple design on the top added a nice touch to the custard beneath.
The custard remained a little soft. When I try this recipe again, I will bake it for a little longer, I think an additional five minutes would be perfect. I would also rotate the baking dish half-way through the cook time. As you can see in the picture above, one side got a little toastier than the other.
According to the Elders, it was very tasty. Mother doesn’t care for orange in her foods, so while she tried it, she didn’t care much for it. Dad did enjoy the tart, especially the fact that it was not as sweet as some other dessert recipes.
I can’t wait to try it again…and actually be able to eat it!

How Accurate Is It?:

I stayed true to the recipe on this one, though I did have to look up the term codling as used in the original Hanna Glasse recipe. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a codling is any of several varieties of cooking apple having a long tapering shape. Since long, tapered apples are relatively non-existent in the modern American grocery store, I settled on the “traditional” cooking apple. The Granny Smith.
Other than that and the convenience of an electric whisk, I did not deviate from the original recipe at all.