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For the crust:
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Whisk together flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Add butter pieces and, with a pastry blender or a fork, quickly cut the butter into the flour mixture, until mostly pea-sized pieces of butter remain. Be careful not to overblend!
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Combine water, cider vinegar, and ice in a large measuring cup or small bowl. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the ice water mixture over the flour mixture, and mix with a pastry blender, a fork, or your hands, adding more water 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together in a ball, with some dry bits remaining. Squeeze and pinch with your fingertips to bring all the dough together and shape the dough into a flat disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight (see note).
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When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400u00b0F. Lightly butter a 9-inch tart pan and take the chilled dough out of the fridge to sit at room temperature to soften slightly (about 5 minutes). It should be cold and firm but not rock hard. Roll out your dough by lightly flouring your work surface and rolling out dough until it is about 11 inches in diameter and about 1/8 inch thick. Gently transfer the dough to the 9-inch tart pan; use your fingers to press it evenly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. Set aside in the fridge until ready to use.
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For the filling:
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Combine the sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl and set aside.
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Peel the apples and slice them in half. Core and remove the stems. Working with one apple half at a time, thinly slice into sections, keeping slices together as you go. Press sliced apple half gently to fan it out; repeat with remaining apple halves. Place 1 fanned apple half on outer edge of the tart dough, pointing inward; repeat with remaining apple halves. Separate remaining apple slices. Starting where the apple halves touch and working your way in (layering apples to create a tight rose pattern). Fill in any gaps with remaining apple slices.
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Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the apple slices. Drizzle 1/4 cup liquid honey on top of the tart (save the rest for a post-oven drizzle) and dot with the butter pieces. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the crust has browned and the apples have softened.
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Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. Drizzle with the remaining honey. Serve warm or at room temperature with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
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Crust recipe adapted from the Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. Filling adapted from Butter Me Up Brooklyn.
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Notes:
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1. Wrapped tightly, the dough can be refrigerated for 3 days or frozen for 1 month.
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2. In this recipe I used honeycrisp apples, but other great baking apples include empire, gala, braeburn, granny smith, pink lady, cortland, or fuji.
