French Apple Tart Recipe

While I love creating beautiful cakes and darling confectionaries, it’s simple desserts like this Julia Child French apple tart recipe (tarte aux pommes) that truly make me happy. It’s the uncomplicated mixture of butter, sugar, and fresh fruit that’ll overwhelm your senses and reach the very deepest part of you.

French Apple Tart (Tarte aux Pommes)

Before winter arrives and citrus steals the show with desserts like my lemon ricotta cake or lemon tart, it’s important to embrace and give attention to apples, which are oh-so-deserving.

This rustic apple tart recipe carries the sweet scent and taste of of sliced apples glazed with fig preserves, and will make anyone appreciate the art of baking with fruit.

I think this easy French apple tart is such a fantastic dessert when you’re looking for simple entertaining recipes as it doesn’t require a lot of ingredients and is very simple to put together.

It’s the first dessert I think of when someone asks me for an easy French recipe.

What’s the difference between apple pie and apple tart?

While apple pie tends to be an American way to enjoy baked apples with a pastry crust, an apple tart is the French way. 

Apple Pie (American tradition):

• Crust: Apple pies usually have a double crust (one on the bottom, one on top), though some versions have a lattice or crumb topping.

• Filling: The apples are often mixed with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, salt and sometimes flour or cornstarch to thicken. They’re enclosed in the pastry, so the filling bakes inside and becomes juicy and soft.

• Texture: A bit rustic, cozy, and homey. The crust tends to be thicker and more buttery.

• Serving vibe: Classic comfort food, often served warm with vanilla ice cream (“à la mode”).

Apple Tart (French tradition):

• Crust: An apple tart typically has a single, thinner pastry base (pâte brisée, pâte sucrée, or puff pastry). No top crust.

• Filling: Can be made two ways:

  1. Thinly sliced apples beautifully fanned out on top like it’s done here, or on a bed of almond cream in a removable bottom tart pan.

  2. More rustic versions (like a Tarte Tatin) where apples are caramelized and then baked under pastry and flipped before serving.

• Texture: Elegant, refined, with the apples showcased visually rather than hidden. The crust is usually more delicate and crisp.

• Serving vibe: Chic and café-style, often dusted with powdered sugar or brushed with a jam (apricot) glaze for shine.

So, in short: pie is cozy, hearty, and enclosed; tart is elegant, open-faced, and about presentation.

Do I need to blind bake an apple tart?

Unlike other fussy tarts, this apple tart does not need to be blind-baked first. That’s why I love sharing this recipe with anyone who wants to get started in the world of French desserts. 

It doesn’t matter what level baker you are or how fancy you like to get in the kitchen, this French apple tart will impress without a ton of effort.

If you’re looking to go the quick and easy route, you can make this French apple tart with puff pastry bought at the store.

That makes this dessert a total cinch.

If you’re all about getting your hands a little messy, feel free to make your own pastry at home.

Regardless of whether you go the homemade route or store-bought route, just be sure you’re using puff pastry instead of pie crust.

The puff pastry is a bit lighter, which is what we’re going for with this French apple tart recipe.

What apples are best for apple tart? 

For the apple topping, you can use any kind of apple that you enjoy.

My love for apples is pretty evident here on the blog. I’ve got recipes like Chicken Normandy (which is a dish of chicken and apples), apple-glazed pork tenderloin, a frangipane French apple tart, and even apple jam!

Apples are wonderful for this tart because they bake really nicely, are naturally sweet, and they’re not super juicy, a.k.a. they won’t make your pastry soggy.

For this particular French apple tart recipe, I tend to use Gala apples or Honeycrisp apples.

If you wanted, you could do a mix of sweet and tart, such as using Granny Smith apples, like you might with a classic apple pie recipe.

Do you need to cook apples before baking?

Nope! Thankfully, all you really need to do when it comes to prepping the apples is to peel and cut them.

Then you just toss them with a little sugar and lemon juice in a bowl before layering the apple slices onto the pastry and baking everything all together. This makes the prep for this tart super quick and simple.

Tips for making this French Apple Tart:

A couple of points to take note of when you’re assembling this tart…

• If you assemble this French apple tart recipe as instructed below, your pan is likely to get pretty messy from the apple juices that run off the tart during the baking process. Make your life easy by using a sheet of parchment paper underneath the tart for easy clean-up and to protect your baking sheet.
• When the juices run off, they’ll quickly turn dark and burn early in the baking process – don’t fret. Your actual tart is fine and should continue baking.
• If you want to prevent any run-off from the apple juices, you can assemble this French apple tart a little bit differently. Instead of layering the apple slices all the way to the very edges of the tart, you can leave a thin (about 1/2″ to 1″) border bare along the edges of the square puff pastry dough. This will create a border wall around the apples that prevent the juices from running off the tart edges.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful aspects of this French apple tart recipe occurs after the tart comes out of the oven.

Once the tart is fresh out of the oven and still warm, a simple brushing of fig preserves (or apricot jam, marmalade, etc.) on top of the tart gives it a glamorous, shiny appearance as well as some complimentary flavor.

Brushing sweet fruit preserves over desserts is an age-old technique many bakers and pastry chefs use to give their desserts that professional, glossy appearance.

The technique works really well for this dessert makes this French apple tart a total show-stopper!

After I set the tart down at the table, I’ll usually use a sharp knife to cut up the tart into smaller squares for my guests.

You can serve this French apple tart as is, or you can serve each square with a scoop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for an indulgent touch.