Apple tart with late-harvest Riesling ice cream

Ingredients

1 pint vanilla ice cream
1/2 cup late-harvest Riesling or other sweet or late-harvest wine
1 (9 by 10-inch) sheet puff pastry dough, 1/4 inch thick; thaw if frozen
4 Granny Smith or Gravenstein apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
Sugar, for sprinkling
Ground cinnamon, for sprinkling

Directions

Place the ice cream in a bowl and leave at room temperature until it becomes soft enough to stir. Stir in the wine and place in the freezer to firm up. This may take anywhere from 20 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how soft the ice cream is. (The ice cream can be flavored a day in advance.)

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Cut the sheet of dough into quarters, yielding four pieces about 4 1/2 by 5 inches. On each piece, cut a strip of dough 1/2 inch wide from both sides of the 4 1/2-inch length. Spread a light coating of water on the bottoms of the strips and place them on top of the dough, parallel with the edges they were cut from. This creates a little pastry trough with raised edges. (See illustration.) Arrange the apple slices between the edges in an overlapping pattern. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Place in the oven and bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Every 10 minutes, rotate the pan from front to back to ensure even baking. Serve warm or at room temperature with a scoop of the ice cream on top; garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

All too often, desserts are sweeter than the wines they are served with, making the wine taste even less sweet. If the sweetness and acidity in a dessert are in balance, or neutralize each other, the wine will taste true and not be affected by the flavors in the dessert. The tartness in the apples and the light dusting of sugar on this tart help to balance its acidity and sweetness, making it a great partner for the late-harvest Riesling. This recipe uses store-bought ice cream as a great shortcut to making your own wine-flavored ice cream. Of course, you could start from scratch, especially if you have an ice cream maker.