Apples are the most important agricultural product of the pretty Valle d’Aosta, a mountainous region in the far north of Italy. So it’s not surprising that each October, the Valle d’Aosta celebrates its fresh produce with an Apple Festival. This festival is just one of 50 mentioned in Food Festivals of Italy: Celebrated Recipes from 50 Food Fairs (pub. Gibbs Smith $35). This lovely cookbook/travelogue, by James O. Fraioli and Leonardo Curti, contains 100 recipes from food festivals across Italy.
The Apple Festival, they say, celebrates the varieties of apples that are grown in the Valle d’Aosta: Renette, Jonagold, Delicious and Starking. These apples will be baked in apple tarts and pies, bottled, dried or eaten raw. This recipe from Food Festivals of Italy is for a classic rustic apple tart – torte di mele rustica - and appears here with permission.
Italian Apple Tart – Recipe
Ingredients – Serves 8-10
- 2 fresh apples
- 1 small lemon
- 1 cup sugar, divided
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 4 large eggs
- 2 ½ cups cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- ½ cup whole milk
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ cup powdered sugar
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 10-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- Peel the apples, core, halve, and thinly slice. Zest lemon, reserving zest. Squeeze some lemon juice over apples and toss; set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together ¾ cup sugar and butter for at least 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the vanilla and lemon zest to the milk. Fold half the flour into the egg mixture and stir in half the milk. Fold in the remaining flour and then stir in remaining milk. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
- Place apple slices in concentric circles on top of the batter to completely cover the top of the cake and then pour the cream over top. Mix together the remaining ¼ cup sugar and the cinnamon and sprinkle over the cream.
- Bake until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean, after about 45 minutes. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let it cool completely. Release from the pan and slide onto a serving platter.
- Cut the apple tart into 8 to 10 wedges. Dust with powdered sugar; serve warm with vanilla gelato or as a coffeecake.
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