No assembly required, but...

IKEA, Ottawa , ON

I love eating at IKEA, and their apple tart always looks at me in a way that I find hard to resist, but the few times that I gave in to the temptation always disappointed me.

No fancy Swedish name, just "Cake, Apple"

The IKEA version of apple tart has a fairly thin crust, a topping that looks like crumble and a filling of fresh apples and raisins. But the overall taste experience falls short of the expectations raised by that description.

Let's have a look at each of the components separately.

The topping contains shredded coconut and cinnamon. I found the coconut to be totally out of place and I don’t think it goes well with the cinnamon.

The crust is very boring, and gives the impression it is a bit stale. The bottom of the tart is a layer of cream on top of the crust, but the cream does not add anything interesting and also seems out of place.

The best part of this tart are the apples. They are crunchy and taste fresh, and a few raisins are mixed in, which are a plus in my book.

In spite of the delicious filling, the overall impression is not... impressive. It took me several tastings to figure out why my taste buds weren't as enthusiastic as my eye balls. Yes, it was hard work, but I gladly made the sacrifice for the benefit of this blog.