3000 miles 'til dinner.

Original MIL Mission #50: Apple-Almond Tart

The hubby and I spent the July 4^th long weekend baking in the hot, and I mean HOT, desert sun of Palm Springs. But that didn’t take away from our fun! We holed up in a beautiful home with 6 of our closest friends, including four ‘lil ones to help spice up our weekend, and also celebrated the hubby’s birthday. And guess who made an appearance – none other than MIL herself! Needless to say, all friends were thrilled to have her during the weekend.

And since these types of family fun weekends usually center around us gorging ourselves, I figured the weekend presented a great opportunity to make a crowd pleaser like the apple-almond tart.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are the simple and sweet ingredients.

I wanted to simplify things a bit so I decided to pre-make part of the tart prior to our road trip and finish off baking at Palm Springs. MIL told me that the tart is best the day it’s baked.

So I first started off with making the tart crust. I didn’t have any leftover dough, but homemade crust isn’t that hard to make I realize. I partially baked the crust for 5 minutes the night before we left and froze for safe keeping during the drive.

I then toasted my almonds…

 … and Cuisinarted my wet ingredients. I combined the ground toasted almonds with the egg mixture and poured the filling into a container for transport to Palm Springs. 

{Fast forward to Palm Springs. I’ll spare you the boring car drive.}

Now that my crust, almond-egg mixture and whole apples had made it safely to our vacation house, I proceeded to cut the apples into ¾ inch chunks. And this is when it’s wonderful to have MIL around when doing an attempt. 

Instead of baking the apples in the oven, MIL told me I could just cook the apples over the stovetop with some butter. The idea is to partially cook the apples before they’re put into the tart crust and finished off in the oven. Just make sure they are softened but not all the way. 

Then we drained the cooked apples so that the tart wouldn’t get too mushy. 

 And then into the tart shell the apples went, along with the almond-egg mixture and a sprinkling of slivered almonds on top! And see… we had a little extra-bit-of-everything for a mini-me tart. 

♥MIL MISSION #50: ACCOMPLISHED.♥ 

Success! We dusted a bit of powdered sugar on top so it would look prettier.

 And I think the little munchkin in the background would agree. Yes, she will be getting the mini-me tart.

 There were a bunch of wing-it’s used during this attempt, but all under the watchful eye and counsel of MIL. So everything turned out just fine. I brought the tart over to another houseful of friends who also happened to be in Palm Springs for the weekend, and everything was gobbled up! Thank goodness I didn’t have to eat the whole thing!

And I agree with fellow DIL that whipped cream is a MUST with this recipe.

I just have to mention that I also baked Ashley’s Banana Bread and the leftover dough from my first Incredible Chocolate Chip Cookies attempt. And they were all consumed with glowing reviews from the friends. I told you it was a sugar smorgasborg!

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥ 

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very) 

Cupboard to table time: Approximately 2 hours total

Difficulty: 2 (but only because it’s fun to cook for/around friends)

Deliciousness: 4

Impressed Husband + Friends factor: 5 (they were just impressed that I could make a tart crust from scratch!)

Leftover-friendly: 5