How to make the perfect Tarte Tatin

Spanishchef.net recommends these products

This classic French dessert – tarte tatin, is a real culinary masterpiece! Crisp, light pastry is placed on top of thickly sliced, caramelized apples, then the tarte tatin is turned upside down after cooking and sprinkled with icing sugar.

Research shows that the Tarte Tatin was first created by accident at the Hotel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron, France, about 100 miles (160 km) South of Paris, in the 1880s. The hotel was run by two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin . There are conflicting stories concerning the tart’s origin, but the most common is that Stéphanie Tatin, who did most of the cooking, was overworked one day. She started to make a traditional apple pie but left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long. Smelling the burning, she tried to rescue the dish by putting the pastry base on top of the pan of apples, quickly finishing the cooking by putting the whole pan in the oven. After turning out the upside down tart, she was surprised to find how much the hotel guests appreciated the dessert, and Tarte Tatin was born. In an alternative version of the Tarte Tatin origin, Stéphanie baked a caramelized apple tart upside-down by mistake. Regardless she served her guests the unusual dish hot from the oven and a classic was born. However, regardless of the veracity of this story, the concept of the “upside down tarts” was not a new one. For instance, patissier M.A. Carême already mentions glazed gâteaux renversées adorned with apples from Rouen or other fruit in his “Patissier Royal Parisien” (1841).

The Tarte Tatin became a signature dish of the Hotel Tatin. Historians and gourmets have argued whether it is a genuine creation of the Demoiselles (sisters) Tatin, or the branding of an improved version of the “tarte solognotte”, a traditional dish named after the Sologne region which surrounds Lamotte-Beuvron. Research suggests that, while the tarte tatin became a specialty of the Hotel Tatin, the sisters did not set out to create a “signature dish”. They never wrote a cookbook or published their recipe. They never even called it Tarte Tatin. That recognition was bestowed upon them by Curnonsky, the famous French author and epicure, as well as the Parisian restaurant Maxim’s after the sisters’ deaths. One of the legends has it that Louis Vaudable, the owner of Maxim’s, once tasted it and was smitten. As he described it: “I used to hunt around Lamotte-Beuvron in my youth, and had discovered in a very small hotel run by elderly ladies a marvelous dessert listed on the menu under tarte solognote. I questioned the kitchen staff about its recipe, but was sternly rebuffed. Undaunted, I got myself hired as a gardener. Three days later, I was fired when it became clear that I could hardly plant a cabbage. But this was long enough to pierce the secrets of the kitchen. I brought the recipe back, and put it on my own menu under “Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin”. Unfortunately, Mr. Vaudable was born in 1902, and the sisters retired in 1906. They died in 1911 and 1917, while Maxim’s was purchased by the Vaudable family in 1932.

Recipe for Tarte Tatin

FOR THE PATE SUCREE:
8 oz/225 g plain white flour
1 1/2 oz/40 g caster sugar
6 oz/175 g unsalted butter
1 egg yolk, size 3

FOR THE TOPPING:
4 oz/100 g vanilla or caster sugar
2 oz/50 g butter
2 Ib/900 g firm dessert apples
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp icing sugar

Preheat the oven to Gas 7, 425°F, 220°C, 15 mins before baking. First, make the pate sucrée: in a
large bowl, sieve flour, then stir in 1 ½ oz/4O g caster sugar. Either leave in the bowl or turn out on to a clean surface and form into a mound. Make a hollow in the centre, then add unsalted butter, egg yolk and 2 tsp chilled water. Using your fingertips, bring mixture together to form a soft dough. (If making pate sucrée on a work surface, carefully draw the flour in from the sides of the mound to prevent egg and water escaping.)

Knead the dough lightly, then wrap in greaseproof paper and chill while preparing the topping. Sprinkle 1 1/2 tbsp vanilla or caster sugar over the base of an 8 in/20.5 cm cake tin. Melt the butter and reserve. Peel the apples, cut into quarters, then core and slice thickly. Arrange a layer of apples over the base of the cake tin in a decorative pattern. Sprinkle with half the remaining sugar, drizzle half the melted butter over, then dust lightly with half the cinnamon. Repeat with the remaining apples, sugar, butter and cinnamon.

Place tin over a gentle heat and allow the sugar to melt, then caramelize, taking care not to burn the apples. (This process can take up to 20 mins, depending on how watery the apples are. Firm eating apples work best. You’ll be able to tell when the sugar begins to caramelize as it will start to bubble up between the apples.) Remove from heat and set aside.

Meanwhile, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled pate sucrée to the size of the tin. Using the rolling-pin, carefully place the pastry over the apples and press lightly round the edge of tin. Bake in preheated oven for 20 mins, or until pastry is cooked. If top is browning too quickly, cover with foil. Remove from the oven and invert on to a serving plate. Sprinkle the icing sugar over and serve hot or warm with the cream.

If you require a high quality printout of this article, just click on the printer symbol next to ’Share and enjoy’, and we will do the rest.

Get the best website builder available anywhere –SBI! Click here for more information

Return from tarte tatin to Home Page

If you want to increase your site popularity and gain thousands of visitors – check out these sites THEY ARE FREE. Spanishchef more than doubled its ‘New Visitors’ last month simply by signing up to these sites: