Here's a French version of apple pie alleged to have been invented by two spinsters who ran a rustic restaurant in Lamotte-Beauvron, a hamlet not far from Paris. Their house pie was such a success it was hijacked by Maxim's in Paris and you will now find this dessert (on special days) in numberless French restaurants. This is an adaptation from the recipe in "Chez Panisse Desserts" by Lindsey Shere. It is very thin so doesn't serve many people. It should be served warm with either whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients:
1 10-inch circle frozen or chilled puff pastry (make French puff pastry from any standard recipe or you can buy it frozen)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
6 Tbsp. sugar
1 2/3 to 2 lbs. Macintosh apples
Pinch of cinnamon
Directions
Melt the butter slowly in a nine-inch black iron frying pan over medium heat. Add the sugar, stirring constantly, just until the sugar melts and becomes an opaque golden brown. Remove immediately from the heat as the caramel you have just made continues to cook from residual heat and can easily get too hard and brown.
Peel and core the apples and slice them into eighths. Toss the slices with a few shakes of ground cinnamon. Make a ring of slices around the outer perimeter of the frying pan, slightly overlapping. Make another ring inside this and chop a few slices to build up the center of the tart. Set the pastry on top of the apples and tuck it in around the edges of the pan.
Bake in a preheated 400 F. oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Test with the point of a knife to see that the pastry is cooked through. Invert a large flat serving plate over the tart, then lift the two together and flip the pan over quickly so that the juice doesn't escape. If some of the fruit sticks to the pan, simply rearrange it on the tart.
If the tart must wait to be served, rewarm it before turning it out so that the caramel won't stick to the pan. Shake it back and forth to ascertain that the fruit is loose from the bottom.
Serves 4 to 6.
