Vanilla-Bean Pear & Apple Tart

I have a zillion apples to get through after apple picking.  There's something about fall that makes you bypass even the farmers markets and head for the orchards to pick your own.  Is it the gorgeous foliage views, the hay rides, the cider doughnuts?  When we first arrived, the aroma of cider doughnuts was intoxicating, and they tasted just as good as they smelled.  With doughnuts in our bellies, we picked more apples than we needed.  And I knew the purpose most of them were meant for: pies.  With that in mind, the bulk of our apples were Golden Delicious and Mutsu, which hold their shape well when baked.

The orchard; my niece, Audrey; and a cider doughnut.

I was looking for a new way to do apple pie -- I've done traditional double crust, tarts, turnovers, hand pies, and crostatas.  The recipe I chose involved simmering the apples with some Red Devoe pears in a bath of melted butter and vanilla bean, and they were baked into the pie topped with a walnut lattice crust.  Apple, pear, butter, and vanilla bean combined are truly heavenly, and the chunky pieces of fruit were juicy.  Except... the bottom crust was soggy and the recipe called for an unusual lattice that came with no instructions: the strips were wide with no spaces between them.  I've made several lattice pies before so I wrangled one, but it was fussy.  So I set about re-creating the recipe.

Enter this tart.  It's shallower than a pie and has a lot less fruit, so no soggy bottom crust.  No tricky lattice dough to contend with, and no walnuts to blend into it.  I kept the blend of pears and apples, sprinkling them with vanilla sugar and dotting the whole thing with cold butter.  Much easier and faster than the pie, which was a production.  I might cut the fruit thicker next time because I did miss the big, juicy chunks from the pie.  It also didn't have as much vanilla-butter sauciness as the pie, but tarts are generally drier like that.  Don't substitute that vanilla bean with extract!  Go ahead and splurge on a bean, because it makes a world of difference.  Now I've just got to work my way through about a bushel more of apples!

Maple-Glazed Apple Crostata

I always look forward to baking an apple pie in the fall.  The oven warms the house, and fills it with the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg.  My favorite is a traditional double-crust apple pie, but it's kind of a production.  So when I don't have all day, I turn to open-faced pies like this crostata.  I had made an apple crostata previously with cranberries, but plain ol' apple is usually what I want.  This version is packed with apples.  The recipe calls for just dumping them all onto the dough, but I wanted a fancier look.  Unfortunately, shingling the apples instead of dumping them into one big mound meant not all of them fit, plus they were so packed in that the slices became vertical instead of slanted.  No matter, still delicious.  My aesthetic quibble was actually the crust edges -- I didn't think the crostata needed a 3-inch border like the recipe called for so I went with 2 inches, and you can see it came up short.  But like I said, still delicious.

And it still managed to wow a crowd.  With the leftover apples that didn't fit, I made a halved recipe for the crostata, resulting in this smaller one we ate at home.  I used gala apples, which have great flavor and hold their shape well during baking.  And the bulk bag of organic galas cost the same per pound as the loose galas.  My one disappointment with this recipe was that you don't really taste the maple syrup you brush on the apples at the very end.  I suggest skipping that step, or using more syrup and then telling me how that turned out.