Skills work: Dominique Ansel’s Modern Apple Presentation

Skills Work
Fruit Tart Finishing: Modern Apple Presentation
Dominique Ansel Teaches French Pastry Fundamentals
Chapter 08

I love how Dominique Ansel’s classes are set up: each recipe is so in-depth that he spans the details of each part over the course of multiple lessons.

While I wait to purchase everything needed for his tarts, I decided to practice some of the skills needed for the apple tart. I’ve been practicing my knife skills but they’re nowhere near professional chef level. Since I just got Wusthof knives for an early Christmas present, I decided to try them out with thinly cut, even apple slices, cut in three sections off of the apple core in the triangular way he shows.

Since Dominique slices his apples and then puts them right onto a tart and tops with a glaze, I had to do things a bit differently. My apples weren’t going on top of a tart and I wasn’t making a glaze. What were they going to become instead? I didn’t know. I took a bowl and filled it with water, the juice of a full lemon, and then the lemon itself. Each third of an apple I sliced, I put them into the water to keep from browning.

Originally, I wanted to make those pretty apple roses that are everywhere on the internet, but my store had no puff pastry. They had phyllo dough – not even remotely the same thing. So I hoped that the lemon water would do the trick while I slowly cut each slice as identical as possible.

The knives are still new and perfect and they just fell through the apple. All I had to do was try to make sure each bit was the same thinness and hold it straight. I honestly thought the experiment would be horrible. I’m not good at julienning or making things look perfectly the same. It’s a weak spot for me usually. And this technique? Every one needs to be spot on or it becomes an obvious eyesore. But it went so easy. I no longer have the fear that I’ll require a mandolin to get the same effect.

Once all the apples were sliced, I grabbed the phyllo dough and decided to make something out of it. I defrosted it, laid a few sheets on a round pan, and made a semi-thick mixture of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. I added this to the layers of the phyllo and basted the top layer completely with it before lying down my apples similar to (but flatter than) how Dominique did on his tart.  Once everything was in place, I carefully folded the edges of the phyllo up over the end of the apples so it made a thin crust. I drizzled the last of the butter mixture on the top and popped it in the oven, carefully watching it as I had no idea what I had made or how long something so thin would need to cook.

Luckily, I have some young children who will pretty much eat anything I cook. Once the apple/phyllo came out of the oven, I sliced it up and served it to the kids, hoping for the best as I put a thin layer of powdered sugar on top.

Kids loved it. I tried it and realized it was quite good for some haphazard practice dessert. The best part? I think the apples came out really well. Of course, I was unable to get my apples presented just like his due to having no filling, but they were nearly all the same size and shape. I won’t have a problem when I get to this step during his apple tart!