Carla Makes an Apple Tart

So, we can only film from this side

'cause I forgot to put this earring back in this morning,

'cause I slept on it, and it was poking.

[Male] Any explanation at all.

And just like, [laughs] do this for the rest of the day.

[upbeat music]

Hey, guys. It's Carla.

I'm here in the BA Test Kitchen,

and today, I'm going to make my favorite method

for making pastry dough which has no special equipment,

no food processor, and doesn't get messed up.

And then we're gonna take that dough

and make a super rustic apple tart

where you don't even peel the apples, because why?

So, super simple.

All-purpose flour.

A little bit of salt, sugar, toss, toss.

Just use your hands.

And then with one of these handy-dandy bench scrapers,

which I'm gonna use throughout

the whole dough making process,

this is four ounces, half a cup of unsalted butter.

So again, just using my hands,

I'm tossing the butter into the flour mixture,

and I'm doing that just to coat the outside of these cubes.

They're gonna want to stick anyway, but this way

it's kind of like a little bit of insulation.

Okay, don't need the cutting board again.

Get that outta there.

And now, another part that I really enjoy

is just dumping it right onto the work surface.

Normal pastry dough recipes as this point

would tell you to either smash the butter in with your hands

or use a pastry cutter to do it.

This is a little bit different.

I have a little extra flour here.

I'm gonna flour the pin.

Instead of cutting the butter into the flour,

I'm going to roll the butter into the flour.

And what happens here is instead of making

little pea-sized bits, it creates these long sheets.

So, at this point I have my sheets of butter.

They're coated in flour.

I'm just gonna put everything back into the bowl.

And when you get a little bit more comfortable with

this method you can stay on the work surface,

but it is nice at this point to kinda be contained.

And this is a little extra, but we need

three tablespoons of ice water.

Take a fork.

Really just tossing this through.

I'm not trying not to do anything with

the butter at this stage.

I'm just trying to distribute that liquid.

Okay, so now the moisture's been absorbed,

or at least distributed.

So now, I'm just rolling it out

and it's not supposed to hold together at this point.

It seems a little bit weird,

but I'm gonna try to fold the dough onto itself

like you would fold a letter into thirds.

I always start at the top.

Start at the bottom, whatever works.

And just kind of flipping, it's not folding.

I'm just sort of like, getting everybody to

go to the middle.

And then starting from the other end

and folding up and over.

But like I said, this is a pile of rubble at this point,

so don't be weirded out that you don't have dough yet.

It takes a couple of times.

And then I just use the straight edge again,

get everybody back together into a little rectangle.

Using the thing, smush it over,

and just kinda be light.

I'm like, trying not to touch it too much with my hands.

And then same thing again.

Alright, so this is the third time.

Usually, when I make this dough, that's all it takes.

But what I can see is that like,

most of it on the surface has that creamy look

of like an emulsified dough.

I'm gonna fold it one more time,

and I'm using my hands to form it into a disk, okay?

If it looks a little drier than doughs

that you've made in the past, just trust.

While it sits in the fridge at this point

in a little plastic,

I almost called class-tip.

Plastic, taking a sheet of plastic wrap

and you can actually use the plastic wrap to help gather it

without worrying about smushing it down too much.

So, half an hour, see ya later.

Zingo-zango.

I want to frisbee this.

I know it's not right, so I'll just be normal.

Oh, Rhoda's ready.

Okay, hold on.

We're gonna UFO this disk.

Did you play ultimate?

[laughs] Fling!

Got it!

Yay! [laughs]

Cold dough is easier to roll out.

It also has rested so the gluten isn't so activated,

and the butter is nice and chilled back down,

and I'm not gonna get as much sticking and smushing.

You don't need to go crazy on the flouring,

but I also don't think there's any great advantage to like,

under-flouring, too.

Don't be a hero, you know what I mean?

Give yourself and give the dough

the flour that it needs to not stick.

Chris Morocco taught me turn the dough 90 degrees.

You guys know Chris Morocco?

I used to complain.

Why, why, Chris Morocco?

Why does my dough want to split at the edges so much?

And he said turning it 90 degrees

every other pass of the pin is not overkill.

I started doing that, I did notice an improvement

in my cracks around my edges.

We're using this.

This is called a removable bottom, fluted tart pan.

And I'm going out to about an eighth of an inch thick.

Alright, there's a couple of different ways to get

the dough into the pan.

The method that I like the most is just to take the dough

and roll it onto the pin.

Being mindful now not to like, press down on the pin

because that would smush the dough together.

And just kinda getting all the way to the end.

Brush as much of it as possible onto your shirt as you go.

And then instead of bringing the dough to the tart pan,

bring the tart pan to the dough.

Alright, so now you're just gonna unroll.

Leave a lot of slack, right?

You don't want to do this tightly

because you want to be able to pick the dough up

and push it into the pan.

Starting at one edge, kinda just lifting it up,

I'm pressing it down so that I call this

where the floor meets the walls there's good contact.

And I'm just using this flat part of my knuckle.

Take the rolling pin again,

and I'm gonna use this just to zipper across the dough.

So now, I do want to press down

and it's like a giant cookie cutter, but from upside down.

[Male] Wow, that looks so satisfying.

[laughs] Feels pretty good, too.

And then you get this little skirt of dough.

So, now I'm gonna let the dough chill again

just 'cause I have to make the filling anyway.

First thing, just 'cause the butter

takes a few minutes to brown,

I'm just gonna get that started.

Half a stick of butter.

I'm using my hands for everything today.

It might be a little bit more than I need,

but I'd rather have enough to brush around.

So, it's already half-melted, starting to foam.

If you like making caramel and kind of watching that

magical process of something

turning from one thing into another,

then you will also like making brown butter.

A lot of excitement in the butter.

A little bit of swirling.

And then you can kind of smell it

at the moment that it goes from golden to brown.

And I just want to pull it here.

It's gonna continue to brown a little bit.

I'm going slowly.

I have a few Pink Lady apples.

Why do I like a Pink Lady? [laughs]

So glad you asked.

Pink Ladies are consistent, they're available everywhere,

they hold their shape when they cook,

they are a good combination of sweet and tart,

they are crispy, but they're not too firm like a honeycrisp,

once you bake with it just like, really stays all together.

So, a Pink Lady is a great apple.

I definitely do want to core them, alright?

So, just using the apple corer.

Wow, that's quite a core.

That was a little off-center.

I think I'm realizing right now as we do this

I don't own an apple corer,

so what I usually do at home is dumb,

and takes an extra step, but I just slice it

and then I go back through,

and maybe I use a spoon or a paring knife

to take the cores out.

This is more efficient, but you can tell

I've basically never done it before.

This is the other part where you like, wow.

[mumbling]

[Male] Wow.

I think it's very dull.

It's not me.

[laughing]

And I want to slice these crosswise into rounds,

and I don't want to cut these super thin.

That might be pushing it a little bit.

That's like a quarter of an inch.

I'm gonna try to go a little thinner than that.

They look like googly eyes.

I hate Halloween, to be perfectly honest with you.

It's not my favorite holiday.

[Male] Why do you hate Halloween?

I don't know.

One year I got egged.

[Male] Oh.

That wasn't fun.

Another, I'm afraid of the masks.

The Scream mask is so scary to me.

I just kinda get really nervous.

And then as a parent, it's like a nightmare

'cause you're basically in an eternal struggle about

how much candy am I gonna get?

This is a lot of apples.

Probably more than we needed.

I probably could've stopped after three.

Probably, maybe because it's this many apples

this isn't quite enough sugar.

This is all fine.

The sugar's gonna help browning.

It's not enough to really add a ton of sweetness.

And that's that pinch of salt I was talking about,

and this is the juice of half a lemon,

which will be, I don't know, couple tablespoons?

And that's for flavor.

It's gonna help the apples not to turn brown.

Now all that's left to do is get the apples into the pan,

and the only layer that really counts is the very top.

So, for the bottom, I want to get them kinda close together

so that there's nice layers in the finished tart.

Alright, I think it all looks pretty good.

I think it's gonna look pretty later.

Here's that brown butter.

And the milk solids inevitably

are gonna have fallen to the bottom,

so stir it up as you go.

You'll get some of these flecks,

which looks a little bit like vanilla,

but it's not vanilla.

And while this cooks, the juices are gonna come out.

The juices are gonna mingle with the brown butter.

They're gonna make new flavor together.

They're gonna get even toastier.

And now I'm just brushing a little bit

on the edge of the dough, as well.

It'll give it a little shine.

[glass clanking]

[laughs] The gong.

[mumbling]

This amount of butter was kinda perfect.

I'm gonna leave the tiniest bit so that

when the tart comes out of the oven

I can brush it with a little butter

and give it a little shine at the end.

So, this is going into a 400 degree oven,

which I believe is ready over here.

And I'm gonna set a timer for one hour.

Alright, one hour has elapsed.

I'm gonna check on my tart.

It looks pretty perfect.

Alright, so a couple of things that I'm looking for

to make sure it's done.

I want to see deep, golden brown color

all the way around the crust.

The apples on top got really nice color,

and then just pressing and looking at the ones

on the bottom layer I can tell that they're totally tender

so it's a perfect time to take it out of the oven.

So, now I'm taking just that tiny bit of

residual brown butter that I held back from before,

and while the tart is still warm,

I just want to dab just a little dab

over the apples to shine them up.

This butter will soak right in.

So, if you don't have the patience

to wait for your tart to cool,

or even if you do, either way,

this is a good trick so that you're not

doing this with the tart in your hand.

Take a bowl, regular, ordinary bowl.

Turn it over.

Take your pan.

Just center it.

And the ring drops away.

Tada.

Ooh, it sounds flaky.

Couple of things I want to show you.

One is look at the underside of the crust.

Can you guys see that?

That's because I pressed it really well

against the tart bottom

and got good contact, good heat conductivity.

400 degree oven, really good color on the bottom.

There she is.

Beautiful, rustic ring of apple tart.

I hope that you try this, try the dough.

Let me know how it goes.

Kinda like blueberry pie, I really love seeing the pictures

of all the pies and stuff that you guys come up with.

So, it's apple picking season,

it's fall, it's late fall, it's almost Thanksgiving.

Please make rustic apple tart and let me know how it goes.

So, I'm feeling very pie proud right now.

Or tart proud, I should say, so let's just get a slice

and we can see the different layers.

Oh, crunchy.

Get a nice, little slice.

And this little crisphy edge just fell.

Mm.

It's good.

It's very flaky, it's really crunchy.

I'm just gonna take a little bit of creme fraiche.

Sour cream would work, too.

Just get a little dollop going.

Flaky layers of dough.

Many different layers of apples.

Really soft, tender ones on the under side.

Really nice, firm kinda roasty, toasty guys on the top side.

I feel like I should try it.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Another benefit of a tart, you can eat it warm.

Pie, you have to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait

for it to cool down.

The tart, you just get into right away.

Recommend.

Next, I have a few.

[steam venting] [laughing]

[Male] Here, let's just get that.

[laughing]

[speech drowned out by laughter]

Quick.

[mumbling]

You got a bean facial?

[Female] I saw it.

Yeah, we got it.

Gabby just gave herself a bean facial.

It's really, it's all the rage.