Tarte Tatin
I first tasted a Tarte Tatin whilst staying with a French family on a school exchange, so you could say that I have officially been addicted to Tarte Tatin since the age of twelve. It is honestly one of my favourite French desserts….
I was also lucky enough that this nice French family taught me how to make a Tarte Tatin and gave me their family recipe. I hope that, wherever they are now, they will not mind me posting it up on the internet, as this recipe is too good not to share with you.
The story behind this tart is that one busy Sunday lunch time, the Tatin sisters, who owned a restaurant in central France, were baking a traditional apple tart. They forgot the tart in the oven and it had caramelised by the time they remembered it. Ingenious as they were, the Tatin sisters decided to slap on some short crust pastry on top of the caramelised apples — voilà — a wonderful dessert baring their name was born – La Tarte Tatin.
So here is the recipe:
Tarte Tatin:
-200 g flour
-100 g butter
-1 Egg
-a pinch of salt
-2 kg of Apples
-200 g of sugar
-150 g of Butter
Make a short crust pastry out of the butter, sugar, flour, salt and egg. While preparing the apples, roll the dough up in some clingfilm and let it rest for about an hour in the fridge. Peel, core and cut the apples into quarters. (There is a lot of debate of what kind of apples are best; I tend to use Cox Oranges as they are quite firm and I like their sweetness).
Heat the oven to about 180° C. Let the rest of the butter melt in a tart dish (I reckon a ceramic one works better than a metal one, though I don’t know why). When the melted butter is starting to bubble, add about half of the sugar and place the apples on top of the sugar. Pour the rest of the sugar on top of the apples. Put the dish back in the oven until the sugar has caramelized and you can see the caramel peeking out from beneath the apples.
Roll out the pastry and place it on top of the apples. The thing is that it really does not matter if the pastry rips when you place it on top, but it is important that the apples are completely covered by the pastry. Bake for about 40 min or until the pastry is golden brown.
When the tart is finished, take it out of the oven and let it cool ever so slightly. Turn it out onto a serving plate so that the pastry is at the bottom and the caramelised apples on top. Serve with either crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.
You can download the recipe for Tarte Tatin here.
Enjoy!
– Emilie
2 COMMENTS - Add your own
so much butter? 150g for pastry and 100g for wath??
I admit a tarte tatin is not necessarily diet food. The 100 g of butter are for the pastry, the 150 g of butter are to caramelise the apples..