Recipe for tarte tatin
Simple recipe for classic French apple tart: Tarte Tatin.
Whether the story behind this “upside-down” apple tart is purely branding or if the Tatin sisters truly created the tart by accident remains unclear, but the story nonetheless adds a charming twist to this delicious, caramelized apple tart classic.
Tarte Tatin allegedly has its roots in 1880s France, 160 km south of Paris, at Hotel Tatin. There are various versions of the backstory, but the most commonly cited one involves a busy and stressed Stéphanie Tatin attempting to make a traditional apple tart, only to accidentally cook the apples too long in butter and sugar on the pan. She tries to salvage the heavily caramelized apples by laying the tart dough over the apples in the pan and then tossing the whole thing into the oven. When she flips the apple tart out of the pan and serves it to the guests, they are all overjoyed – and thus, a beloved classic is born.
For a tarte Tatin, one typically uses either Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, or Gala apples. At least, that’s what I’ve read. To be honest, I don’t actually know what kind of apples I used, as I just brought home some random apples from work. This was also my first attempt at a tarte Tatin, so I was quite excited! It’s somewhat nerve-wracking to discover at the last minute, just before serving, whether your apple tart is a hit or a miss.
Here, I used a ready-made puff pastry, making it a very simple tart to create.
Ingredients
- 4 Apples Regular size
- 70 gram Sugar
- 1 Vanilla pod
- 1 package Puff Pastry One roll
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit), conventional oven.
- Start by preparing the apples: Peel them and remove the cores.
- Cut the apples into 1-centimeter thick slices.
- Split the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds with a knife.
- Find a pan of appropriate size.
- Heat the pan on low heat.
- Sprinkle some of the sugar onto the pan, just enough to cover the bottom.
- Let the sugar melt. It should heat slowly to avoid burning, just turning a nice golden color.
- Once the sugar has melted, add the remaining sugar.
- Let the last bit of sugar melt slowly and on low heat as well.
- Turn off the heat under the pan with the now caramelized sugar.
- Add the vanilla seeds to the caramel.
- Carefully place the apple slices on top of the caramel (see picture).
- Let the apple slices collapse a bit.
- Remove the pan from the heat.
- Unpack the puff pastry.
- Place the puff pastry on top of the apples - and be careful not to burn your fingers.
- Poke some sporadic holes in the dough with the tip of a paring knife (see picture).
- Place the pan in the now hot oven.
- Bake your tarte tatin for about 30 minutes.
- Take the now finished tarte tatin out of the oven.
- Find a plate with a larger circumference than your pan.
- Place the plate on top of the pan and, with a quick motion, turn the tart around and out onto the plate.
- Here, I served the apple tart with whipped cream mixed with vanilla sugar. Always be careful not to overwhip the cream, but stop whipping just before you think it’s done: The whipped cream tends to "set" a bit when it has been standing for a while.
