My grandmother was born and raised in a small town in the North of France right on the Belgian border, in a region that has a strong identity with its own patois, folk tales, and culinary repertoire. She's the one who tipped me off to the sugar tart, known in the North as 'l'tart a chuc': a round of light, brioche-like dough made with beer or milk, topped with a mix of sugar and creme fraiche, and baked to a golden amber. It is irresistible as is, but I have taken the liberty of removing the cream topping and adding in its stead thinly sliced apples, fanned out across the top of the tart; they add a welcome layer of fruity and lightly tart notes and nothing's stopping you from dolloping creme fraiche on the side when you serve it. The dough base itself is not very sweet at all; most of the sugar is in fact sprinkled on the tart, where it is in a prime position to caramelize in the oven. The ideal sugar to use here would be the locally produced 'vergoise brune', a brown beet sugar with notes of butterscotch; short of that, you can use any flavorful soft, light brown sugar.