[Sca-cooks] Tarte Grandmere questions, a few? WAS Re: Just back from France

[Patricia Dunham]

On Nov 1, 2011, at 9:01 AM, Michael Gunter wrote:

> I attended a daylong class at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. We made Mussles ... and Grandmother Tart (apples, pears and nuts cooked in custard in
> a shortcrust shell). 

Hi Gunthar,

This Grandmother Tart really caught my eye. I've been hunting around on the intertoobs and have found out quite a bit about this "genre" of comfort food, but not quite any recipe that feels REALLY like what you sketched above. 

And now the Christmas-COOK-COOK-COOKs are upon me, even if, in my circumstances, it's mostly recipe-collecting, 8-) So I'm finally getting around to asking for more detail, maybe? please? if possible?

For example, I HAVE found:  
	many recipes with apples only, apples & almonds, plums & almonds, pears (incl. pear w cardamom, w raspberry, w honey mascarpone cream, etc.).  
	a lot of recipes of pears and almonds, which generally look very little like the apple-based pictures in the links below
	found almost nothing with BOTH apples and pears, except for the Marmiton link below
	a few specifically with "custard" word in the instructions or title, more w cream, sugar & eggs in ingredients.  
	a few with shortcrust shells.  
	a few with a "crumble" topping, usually with "a l'ancienne" in title. 
	a fair number of savory tartes grandmeres.  
	most are tarte tatin form, open top w wheel of fruit slices arrangement

I got better results when I searched in french! i.e. "pomme poir amande tarte grandmere"

I did find a couple of recipes that looked like they MIGHT be close, http://chezbasilic.com/apple-custard-tart-recipe.html for an "apple custard tart, Provence".  But it's just apples & custard.

Now this http://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_tarte-pommes-poires-au-lait-d-amande_33740.aspx (or google the tarte-pommes-poires-au-lait-d-amande part , look for the link that starts with "marmiton", and google will offer a translate option) looks closer to what you described, apples AND pears, and maybe a custard made with almond milk...

Found what looks like a "shortcrust pastry" recipe in a big list of pear tartes, from the french-terms search, but can't really find that url anymore...

Anyway, the first two urls have pretty pictures that look a lot alike, is that what yours looked like? if your Cordon Bleu version did NOT look like these pics, then what?  what kind of nuts? real nuts or just nut extracts? the "shortcrust/shortbread" pastry mentioned above had sugar and 2 egg yolks, does that sound right?

Thanks much in any case,
Chimene in AnTir