gluten-free apple cranberry tart

I have never in my life felt so much love for apples until today. 

I woke up around 5:30 AM today to set up for a community garage sale. After 6 long hours of waiting and watching and pretending to be somewhat of an entrepreneur, my nose became runny and I felt congested and I thought I was about to get sick. Took a nap and woke up STILL feeling congested, and you know what they say: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"! :D And so I ate an apple. And it was the juiciest and crispiest apple I've ever had en mi vida and that's my story of what brought me to this apple recipe. An apple recipe is pretty fitting for autumn too :)

Teresa Cutter's apple pie recipe gave me the idea to attempt something fruity. I mean I've used bananas and such but I've never actually made a baked good where the main feature was the fruit. It was usually chocolate, but I'm open to switching things up a bit :)

Instead of using apple juice that Teresa's recipe calls for, I simmered my apple slices in cranberry juice. The cranberry added a sour kick to the sweet apples, a combination that paired rather nicely with the crust.

Apple slices simmering in cranberry juice

Apples all soaked up in cranberry juice :)

At first I wanted to lay my slices out in a line, but it looked plain and the slices didn't fit well with the tart mold, so I went with the rose. I was a bit scared of attempting the rose because I've never made a fruit tart before, but overlapping the slices wasn't as hard as I thought, and I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome :)


Gluten-Free Apple Cranberry Tart

adapted from The Healthy Chef
yields 2 small tarts

Ingredients:

Crust:
1/2 cup almond flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1 tbs honey
1 egg white

Filling:
1 medium sized apple
6 tbs cranberry juice
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

- Preheat the oven to 350° F. 
- For the crust, combine the almond flour and ground flaxseed in a bowl. Then add the egg white and honey and incorporate until it becomes a firm ball of dough. Let the dough rest.
- For the filling, combine the cranberry juice, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in a small saucepan.
- Slice the medium sized apple into thin leaving the skin on. Then place the slices in the pan and set at low heat.
- Let the apples simmer slowly until they have cooked down drained the saucepan of the cranberry juice. Let the filling cool.
- Take a two small tart pans and spray each with PAM. Then fill each of the pans with equal amounts of the filling. Using a spoon (or your hands) make sure the entire pan is covered and that the crust is not too thin.
- Take the cooled apple slices and place them on the crust, starting from the edge and overlapping the slices as you go until you hit the center of the tart. Once you're at the center, form one apple slice into a circle and gently press it down.
- Bake the tarts for 7-8 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool. Then remove them from the tart pans and serve.