This vegan apple tart is made with easy homemade pastry, apple sauce, thinly cut apple slices and an apricot jam glaze. It’s the delicious French Tarte aux Pommes – vegan style!
Almost every year since I was born I’ve spent the summer in the South of France. This means I grew up eating French patisserie, and lots of it.
But now I’m vegan and I had to figure out how to make all that yummy French patisserie myself. And it’s really quite fun to make!
We hope you enjoy this Tarte aux Pommes as much as we do. It’s the ideal vegan dessert for fall, and is always popular served at parties and events.
There’s four elements to this vegan apple tart:
- A light flaky pastry
- A subtly spiced apple sauce
- Beautifully thin apple slices
- And a glaze of apricot jam
Ingredient tips
For making the pastry we recommend a block style vegan butter for the best results. Naturli Organic Block is our favourite.
The sweetness of the tart comes mainly from the apples so you’ll want to use a sweet tasting apple for best results. Varieties such as Gala, Fuji and Golden Delicious are all recommended by French chefs.
Using a mixture of different colour apples, or using a low proportion of sour apples like Granny Smith is also a nice idea for variation. For the apple slices on top you’ll want to use similar sized, firm apples that hold together when cooked.
For the applesauce, you can use softer apples that cook and fall apart quickly. It’s the ideal way to use up wonky or windfall apples. You can adjust the sweetness of the sauce to taste, by adding sugar if necessary.
We like to make a big batch of applesauce in the autumn, and freeze it in portions that we can use all year round. It also makes an excellent egg (or oil) replacer in baking, such as in our Vegan Apple Cake.
Step by step
If you’ve never made pastry before, don’t be scared, it’s actually very simple. It’s also cheaper, tastier and creates less waste than using shop bought pastry.
You'll find the full recipe in the card below, but here's a visual overview of how to make the tart:
Step 1 - Dice the vegan butter and rub it into the flour with your fingertips.
Step 2 - Add the cold water. Only use just enough to gently form it into a dough.
Step 3 - Form the pastry into a ball and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Step 4 - On a well floured board, roll out the pastry.
Step 5 - Line a tart tin and prick the base with a fork to stop it from rising. Bake the pastry blind for 10 minutes at 200C / 390F.
Step 6 - Remove from the oven and cover the pastry base in the applesauce.
Step 7 - Arrange the thinly sliced apples on top and then return to the oven for a further 20 minutes at 200C / 400F.
Step 8 - Remove from the oven and use a pastry brush to spread the apricot jam glaze over the apples.
Variations and substitutions
If you don't want to make the pastry by hand, you can do it in a food processor, or use a storebought vegan shortcrust pastry.
Instead of making the apple sauce from scratch, you can substitute a jar of shop bought or canned applesauce or compote if you want to. Just use something that's not got added sugar.
For the glaze, instead of our homemade apricot jam (which is deliciously fruity), you can use a commercial jam. Apricot is traditional, but you could also use another flavour of jelly.
We hope you enjoy our vegan apple tart! Come back and try our other vegan apple recipes:
Vegan Apple Strudel - Learn how to make a traditional strudel from scratch!
The Infamous Apple Curry (Never tried apples in a curry? – we love it!)
This super easy 5 ingredient recipe for Vegan Apple Fritters
And our Vegan Apple Cake which has a yummy streusel nut topping.
📖 Recipe
Vegan Apple Tart
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 8 oz (220 g) plain flour
- 4 oz (110 g) vegan butter or margarine
- 2 tbsp ice cold water
For the filling
- 3 ¼ cups (400 g) diced apples
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp brown sugar optional
- ½ tsp cardamom optional
- ½ tsp cinnamon optional
- 6 thinly sliced apples
For the glaze
- 1 tbsp apricot jam
- 1 tsp boiling water
Instructions
Making the pastry
- Place the flour in a bowl and add the vegan butter, then rub together with your fingers until like breadcrumbs.
- Slowly add the water whilst gently mixing with your hands. Use just enough so that it forms a smooth ball of dough.
- Leave to rest in the fridge or a cool place for 30 minutes.
Making the applesauce
- In the meantime, you can make the apple sauce. No need to peel, simply chop into quarters, remove the core and dice. Place in a pan with 2 tbsp water and cook with a lid on until soft, approximately 10 - 15 minutes.
- When the apples are cooked, add the spices and sugar to taste then puree them with a handheld blender until smooth.
Assembling and baking the tart
- Roll out the chilled pastry on a floured board, until large enough to line your tin. We used a rectangular tray 25 x 30cm (10 x 12 inch), you could also use a 30cm / 12 inch circular tart tin.
- Transfer the pastry into your tin by supporting it on the rolling pin. Gently shape it up the side of the tin without stretching it. You can trim the edges and patch up and holes if necessary.
- Prick all over the base of the pastry with a fork. This helps the pastry to stay flat when baking.
- Bake the pastry blind for 10 minutes at 200°C / 390°F.
- Now slice the apples for the top. Cut them into quarters, core them and then chop into 1-3mm thick slices. TIP: If you want to make sure they don't start to brown, put them in a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon juice.
- Take the pastry shell out of the oven. Spread the applesauce over the base, and then arrange the apple slices on top. This is my favourite part, you can do all sorts of fun things with the patterning.
- Return to the oven and bake for around 20 more minutes.
- Take the tart out of the oven when the pastry is golden and the apples are soft and just starting to dry out.
- Make the apricot glaze by mixing the jam with the boiling water.
- Spread the glaze all over the tart using a pastry brush. The glaze keeps the fruit from going dry and adds a shine and sweetness to the tart.
- Et voila! Your lovely vegan apple tart is done. Now go and reward yourself with slice (or two!)
Notes
Nutrition
This information is calculated per serving and is an estimate only.
Ulrika Firefly says
This recipe is very clearly described and easy to follow, the pics are really useful and the result - with apples from our small urban garden apple tree - was delicious. I didn't add any sweeteners, the apples and the jam provided ample sweetness the pastry came out really well with the vegan butter. Only question is, why did I not discover this simple, foolproof and delicious apple tarte sooner. I will definitely use this recipe over and over again. Thank you so much!
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Ulrika, thank you so much for your comment 🙂 The simple recipes are the best to make over and over again. This recipe is perfect right now for apple season! Enjoy! Sophie & Paul