Saturday, May 13, 2006

Tarte Tatin


I have seen so many recipes for Tarte Tartins lately that I just knew I had to try one soon. Finally I had my excuse today when Elise came over for lunch. I followed the recipe in Allan Campion & Michele Curtis’ 2006 Seasonal Produce Diary which has not let me down with a recipe yet. The recipe was fairly simple, the only difficulty factor is in tipping it upside down without leaving too much mess & hopefully getting it on the plate straight. With a bit of help from Michael I managed to succeed reasonably well. As you can see in the picture it is not the prettiest of dishes though I swear all the magazine pics look 100% better than mine! The flavour was luscious, very sweet, almost like stewed apples, served with some vanilla ice cream created the perfect balance, really good & you can kid yourself its almost healthy due to the fruit factor. Oh & by the way I used up my entire crop of granny smiths for the season for this recipe & still had to buy 2 apples from the market, yes that’s right, my tree only produced 2 apples for the whole year, hope to have better luck next year. You need a 22cm deep sided cast iron pan for this or alternately you can cook up the apples in a fry pan then transfer to a pie dish before covering with pastry. I used my paella dish which is oven proof, glad to find another use for it.

Tarte Tatin

75g butter
150g caster sugar
4 granny smith apples, cored & cut into 8ths
1 piece of puff pastry, approx 25 x 25cm
egg wash (1 egg yolk with 1 tablespoon milk)

Cream or ice cream to serve

Preheat oven to 190c. Heat pan over medium-high heat, add butter & sugar & cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring constantly. Cook until sugar & butter are a golden caramel colour. Note do not lick the spoon during this process or you will have a burnt tongue like I now do. Next, carefully add the apples taking care not to splash, cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring to coat the apples with caramel. The apples will begin to release their juice & stop the caramel from over cooking.

Set the pan aside & cool a little. Place pastry over the apples & tuck down the sides to completely cover apples & trim off any excess. Brush pastry with egg wash & place in oven. Cook for 20-25 minutes or until pastry is risen, golden brown & cooked.

To serve, place a large plate over pan or pie dish. Then, using oven gloves, tip plate over & remove, leaving apples on top & pastry on the bottom. Serve immediately with cream or ice cream

6 comments:

GS said...

I love tarte tartin. The best I ever had was at De los santos, in Brunswick St, straight out of the oven. I thought i had died and gone to heaven. I never saw it there again, so maybe it was a whim, or a now departed chef.

It is deceptively simple to make but almost too delicious to share :)

neil said...

The first time I made this I followed the instructions, straight from a well known chef that said to put the pastry on top before you cook the apples. It just melted into a gooey mess. Even the Roux brothers say to do this, not for me anymore.

Ange said...

I love De Los Santos, have never seen a tarte tatin there either

Ange said...

I cant imagine how it could possibly work putting on the pastry b4 cooking the apples, my recipe even said to cool slightly first, will make sure I never try that method!

Amanda and Debbie said...

We gasped in horror when we read you had licked the hot spoon. Must have been very painful. Looks great though.

Ange said...

Thks - my tongue has finally recovered after nearly a week!