Julia Child’s Most Famous Apple Recipe Has a Genius Secret Ingredient

Apples are available year-round, but there’s something about a fresh, fall apple that feels different. It’s delightfully crisp and refreshing, but somehow perfect for a pie or another cozy dessert. Julia Child knew this too, famously turning apples into her Tarte aux Pommes.

I like to think of myself as a pie girl. All that really means is that I like to make and eat pie. My pies are never fussy. For example, I tend to skip the lattice crust and opt for a simple crumble topping. What matters most is how it tastes. I sense that Child felt the same way. Many episodes of her wildly popular television show, “The French Chef,” include her delicious recipes paired with pep talks to viewers. Letting them know that mistakes are inevitable, so embrace them, learn from them, and most importantly, problem solve.

Julia Child's Secret for Tarte aux Pommes

While Child cooked many pies, it was her collection of French desserts that won the hearts of many. She took complicated recipes, and uncomplicated them for us. One such recipe was that for Tarte aux Pommes, a delicious dessert made as a free-form tart, filled with cooked apples and topped with fanned apple slices. The secret to the dessert is in the method. Instead of piling apple slices into a par-baked pie shell, she smartly cooks four or five of them until they are the consistency of applesauce before adding sugar, apricot jam, cognac, and butter. This creates a filling that’s bursting with apple flavor and cooks to a perfect jammy consistency.

Cooking the apples before adding them to the tart is a smart way to soften them, but it’s also a genius way to concentrate the flavor. When I cooked this tart at home, I chose Granny Smith apples and found that the apricot jam sweetened the filling perfectly, as well as tightened up the mixture as it baked. It’s a technique I’d love to try with other fruits, for both tarts and pies.

How to Make Julia Child's Tarte aux Pommes

Child starts by creating a French pie dough with butter, lard, flour, sugar and water. After working the fat into the flour and sugar, she adds water to create the dough. Once combined, she rolls the dough out then presses it gently inside a flan ring (you can also use a baking pan with a removable bottom, she suggests during the episode). After pricking the bottom of the dough with a fork, it’s weighed down and then par-baked for 5 minutes. The sides and weights are removed and the crust is baked for another 3 to 4 minutes. Meanwhile, Child creates the filling by cooking 8 cups of chopped apples in a pot. Once those have softened, she adds lemon zest, cognac, apricot jam, and butter. That mixture is poured into the tart shell and then topped with apple slices. It bakes for another 30 minutes in a 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) oven and is then brushed with warm apricot jam.

The tart is as delicious as it sounds. Every forkful tastes like you’re biting into the tastiest, sweetest apple. While I am still a “pie girl” at heart, Child has me thinking that perhaps, I can also be a “tart girl” too.  

Julia Child's Tarte aux Pommes

(from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child)

Ingredients:

• 10-inch partially cooked pastry shell
• 4 pounds cooking apples 
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup apricot jam/preserves
• 1/3 cup Calvados, rum or cognac (or 1 tablespoon vanilla)
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar for topping
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Quarter, core, and peel the apples. Cut enough to make 3 cups into 1/8-inch lengthwise slices and toss them in a bowl with the lemon juice and sugar. Reserve them for the top of the tart.

2. Cut the rest of the apples into rough slices. You should have about 8 cups. Place in a pan and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender.

3. Beat in apricot jam, Calvados, sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Raise heat and boil, stirring, until applesauce is thick enough to hold in a mass in the spoon.

4. Spread the applesauce in the pastry shell. Cover with a neat, closely overlapping layer of sliced apples arranged in concentric circles.

5. Bake in the upper third of preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until the apples have browned lightly and are tender. Slide the tart onto a serving dish and paint over it with a light coating of apricot glaze. Serve warm or cold with whipping cream or a scoop of ice cream.

Apricot Glaze

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup apricot preserves, forced through a sieve
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Instructions:

1. Stir the strained apricot preserves and sugar over moderately high heat until thick enough to coat the spoon with a light film, and the last drops are sticky as they fall from the spoon (225-228 degrees on a candy thermometer). Do not boil past this point or the glaze will become brittle as it cools.

2. Apply the glaze while it is still warm. Unused glaze will keep indefinitely in a screw-top jar.