For five years, I no longer had the opportunity to speak English. Last autumn I realized that I was so rusty that I had started thinking in Italian and translating into English during the conversation: the worst mistake you can make!
I therefore decided to take conversation tutoring, which is where I met Catherine, a young woman with a helmet of curls and an irresistible smile. She gave me her grandmother’s apple pie recipe, which has the particularity of being cooked in a paper bag for bread. With Italy having bags that are much smaller than the American ones, I reduced the quantity of ingredients to adapt it to a smaller pan.
A delicious cake came out. I fell in love with it!

Atlanta Apple Tart (baked in bread bag)

  • Preparation time: 120 minutes
  • For a 20cm cake tin
  • Difficulty: Easy recipe

  • Ingredients
  • 1 lemon
  • For the pastry:
  • 9 oz (250 grams) of all-purpose flour
  • 4 oz (100 grams) of icing sugar
  • 4 oz (100 grams) of butter
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • For the stuffing:
  • 4 Granny Smith apples
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour
  • 2 oz (50 grams) of sugar
  • For the crumble:
  • 3 oz (75 grams) of all-purpose flour
  • 2 oz (50 grams) of sugar
  • 2 ½ oz (60 grams) of butter
  1. Instructions
  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar with a fork. Combine the egg and finally the flour with the salt.
    Knead briefly with your fingertips. Make a ball, flour it lightly, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for thirty minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, prepare the crumble: mix the ingredients briefly with a fork until you get a grainy mixture.
  4. Peel and finely cut the apples, then cover them with lemon juice.
  5. Put the sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the cut apples and mix well so that the apples are evenly covered in the mixture.
  6. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
  7. Take the pastry and roll it out to a thickness of 3 mm.
  8. In a buttered and floured pan, roll out the pastry base and prick it with a fork. Pour in the apple filling, distributing a little more in the center. Sprinkle the crumble on top.
  9. Place the pan inside the bread paper and try to seal it well.
  10. Bake for about fifty minutes to an hour.
  11. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Tips to ensure the success of the dish:

  • Both the short crust pastry and the crumble need to be worked very little.
  • Cut apples should be sprinkled with lemon juice, as otherwise they risk oxidization.
  • The recipe calls for Granny Smiths, but I also like to use rennet apples.
  • The paper bag must not touch the crumble, as otherwise it will burn. Leave the bag slightly domed on top of the cake.
  • Make sure you don’t put this cake under a glass bell jar because it gets soaked.