Torta de Mele facile (simple apple tart)

There are so many ways to make an apple tart and most recipes are rather complicated. And they also take some time and skill. But this (Italian) recipe is that simple and the result is that delicious, that I consider it my favorite. I thank my friend Ellen for sharing this recipe!

Ingredients:
- 350 g self raising flour
- 225 g cold salted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- some salt
- 125 g raisins (welded if dry)
- 175 g granulated sugar
-  75 g chopped walnuts
- 500 g apples (I always use 'goudreinet')
- lemon zest (from a whole lemon)
- 4 eggs
- cane sugar for finishing

Method:
For the ingredients mentioned above I use a backing pan which measures 24 cms. Grease it by using some melted butter and cover the bottom with baking paper. Mix the flour with the cinnamon, the salt and the butter (sliced in small pieces) until it looks like bread crumb. I use my KitchenAid for that. Then add the raisins, the walnuts, the lemon zest and the sugar. Use a rubber spatula for mixing. Now peel your apples, remove the cores and slice them. Add them to your mixture. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and whisk them in the mixture..
Fill your baking pan and place it for about an hour and a half or more in the baking oven. After half an hour baking, cover the tart with some aluminium foil for about 45 minutes, to prevent the top from getting too dark.
Finish it using the cane sugar and let it cool on a rack before removing it from the baking pan. Buon appetito! 

PS: a good friend of mine who is on a strict gluten free diet is a great fan of this recipe. She uses a gluten free mixture instead of the self raising flour with great results. This easy way of making a tart needs no building up a base of dough, a task that is very difficult when you don't have any gluten in the dough. The product used for replacing the wheat flour is produced by a German company, named Schär. The product itself is named 'mixture C: Kuchen & Kekse". It is available in Europe, but I am not sure that it can be bought in the US.

Klik hier om dit recept in het Nederlands te lezen.