Quick Apple Tarte Tatin
Units
Temperature
Servings
Ingredients
Pan caramel
- 60 g unsalted butter rounded
- 90 g dark brown sugar, dark, not light; it carries the caramel flavour the dry caramel would have made rounded
- 5 ml vanilla extract (optional) rounded
- 1 g fine salt rounded
Apples and pastry
- 900 g firm baking apples, about 5; Braeburn, Boskoop, Elstar or Granny Smith rounded
- 15 ml lemon juice rounded
- 320 g all-butter puff pastry, one ready-rolled sheet, kept cold rounded
Method
Method
- Heat the oven to 200°C and take the puff pastry out of the fridge only when you are ready for it.
- Melt the butter and sugar together in a 25 cm ovenproof skillet over medium heat, swirling until the sugar has dissolved into a smooth bubbling syrup, about 2 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and salt and take it off the heat. That is the entire caramel step. There is nothing to watch and nothing to burn.
- Prepare the apples while it cools slightly. Peel, quarter and core them, then cut each quarter into two thick wedges. Toss with the lemon juice.
- Pack them in tightly, rounded side down. Arrange the wedges in the syrup in overlapping circles, standing them up against each other so they lean the same way. Pack them tighter than looks sensible; they lose about a third of their volume in the oven and gaps now are craters later.
- Lay the pastry over the top. Unroll the cold sheet, trim it to a circle roughly 2 cm wider than the pan, and prick it all over with a fork. Drape it over the apples and tuck the overhang down inside the pan wall all the way round with the back of a spoon.
- Bake 25 to 28 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden and risen and the syrup bubbles thickly at the edges. If the pastry darkens before the syrup thickens, tent it loosely with foil.
- Rest 10 minutes, then flip. This rest is not optional; the syrup needs to thicken enough to cling to the fruit instead of flooding the plate. Run a knife round the edge, set a rimmed serving plate upside down over the pan, and turn the whole thing over in one committed motion with oven gloves. Push back into place any wedges that stay behind.
Notes
- What you trade away is depth, not quality. A dry caramel takes the sugar further and gives a faint bitterness that balances the fruit. Dark brown sugar gets you most of the way there through molasses instead. If you want the real thing and have the patience, the classic apple tarte tatin is the same dessert cooked properly.
- Firm apples only. Anything that collapses into sauce when baked, most cooking apples among them, will give you a soft brown layer with no distinct fruit. Braeburn, Boskoop, Elstar, Granny Smith or Pink Lady all hold.
- The pan does not need to be cast iron, only ovenproof and heavy enough to spread heat evenly. A stainless steel skillet with a metal handle is fine. Nonstick works too and makes the flip easier, though it browns the syrup less.
- Serve warm, within the hour. Cold tatin is still good but the caramel stiffens and the pastry softens. Reheat slices in a hot oven for 5 minutes rather than a microwave.