My Recipe for Tarte Tatin - The French Apple Tart

In this recipe for the famous French apple tart you can:

Use lovely juicy apples that are in season

Imagine you’re baking in a cottage in the French countryside

Cook it slowly on the stove whilst preparing dinner

Present it to the table as a wonderful dessert

 

 

There are any number of recipes around for this rather famous French apple tart but the one I love to make comes from a little book called On Rue Tatin. It’s not a recipe book as such but the delightful story of Susan Herrmann Loomis, and her husband, buying a run down ex-convent in Louviers, France. All the recipes flow naturally from the stories of people Susan meets and the produce she buys at the local markets.

Susan trained at the La Varenne Cooking School in Paris, before working with Patricia Wells. She now runs her own cooking school, On Rue Tatin, in Louviers, Normandy. It’s one of my secret desires to go there but that is unlikely, so her little book is a delightful alternative.

My contribution to the recipe is to forget about making the pastry Susan suggests and use good, bought butter puff pastry, such as Careme.

Tarte Tatin

Serves 6 - 8

Ingredients

• 300g vanilla sugar
• 150g unsalted butter, cut into thin slices
• 2.5kg apples, peeled, cored and halved - tart apples like Granny Smiths or my favourite, Pink Ladies
• I or 2 sheets butter puff pastry
• double Cream

Method

1. Spread the sugar over the base of a 26cm oven-proof skillet - the handle must be oven-proof
2. Place the butter slices evenly over the sugar
3. Arrange the apple halves, standing on their sides, facing in one direction, stem ends towards the centre
4. Pack the apples closely together, working in circles from the outside to centre, finishing with one apple half (cut side up) in the middle
5. Place the skillet over a medium-low heat on the stove top and cook, uncovered, until the sugar turns golden brown, about 1-1/2 hours
6. You may have to adjust the heat to keep the sauce just bubbling gently
7. As the sugar and butter melt with the apple juices you can baste the apples, using a turkey baster if you have one or feel so inclined
8. Gradually the sugar will caramelize the apples nearly all the way through
9. Preheat the oven to 220C
10. After about an hour of cooking the apples, take the puff pastry from the freezer
11. When the pastry is thawed and the apples are ready, gently place the pastry over the apples, stretching it to tuck into the sides of the skillet. 
12. Place the skillet on a baking tray (to avoid juice spillage onto oven) and bake till pastry is a deep gold, about 20 minutes or so
13. Remove from the oven and immediately invert onto a serving plate that is larger than the skillet. Be careful doing this!
14. Serve generous slices, when tart has cooled slightly, with lots of double cream that melts with the juices to create a sublime sauce.

Buy the book here: On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town by Susan Herrmann Loomis

On Rue Tatin Cooking School, Louviers, France

Patricia Wells -  great site about cooking and living in France. (Hint: Use stop button on top left to avoid listening to the music on Home Page)

La Varenne Cooking School - Anne Willan, a well recognised food writer and teacher, runs this school

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