Tarte Tatin

Apples cooked low and slow in butter and sugar until deeply caramelised, covered with puff pastry and baked, then flipped upside down! The apples are soft and almost jammy, intensely sweet with a slight bitter edge from the caramel. Serve warm with crème fraîche.

Prep30

Cook55

Total1 55

Servings

DifficultyMedium

Ingredients

For the pâte brisée

200 gr plain flour
100 gr unsalted butter
25 gr caster sugar
1 pinch salt
1 egg
1-2 tsp cold water if needed

For the filling

1.4 kg apples firm, slightly tart varieties only like Reine des Reinettes
130 gr unsalted butter
150 gr caster sugar
1 sheet all-butter puff pastry kept cold until needed

To serve

crème fraîche to serve

Equipment

cast iron skillet
mixing bowl
rolling pin
vegetable peeler
plate for flipping, wider than your pan

Instructions

Make the caramel

Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Melt the butter in the skillet over medium heat. Add the sugar in an even layer and cook, without stirring much, until it melts and turns a deep amber. Watch it closely near the end.

Cook the apples

Pack the apple halves tightly into the caramel, standing on their sides. Cook over medium-low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until softened and coloured and the caramel has thickened. Take off the heat.

Top with pastry

Roll the pastry to a circle slightly larger than the pan. Lay it over the apples and tuck the edges down inside the pan around the fruit. Prick a few times with a fork.

Bake

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden and crisp.

Rest and flip

Rest for 5 minutes. Wearing dry, grippy oven mitts, place a board or plate larger than the pan firmly over the top, hold tightly, and flip in one decisive motion. Lift the pan away. Replace any apples that stuck.

Serve

Serve warm, with crème fraîche.

Notes

Apple variety is everything. The Reine des Reinettes is the traditional Solognot apple, firm, slightly sharp, and it holds its shape beautifully through long cooking. Boskoop is also excellent. Avoid Gala and Braeburn, too juicy, they make the caramel watery. Avoid Bramley, turns to mush. Avoid Granny Smith, too firm and too sour.
The recipe is genuinely four ingredients. No vanilla, no cinnamon, no lemon. The Confrérie des Lichonneux, the brotherhood that has defended the authentic recipe since 1979, is quite clear on this. The apple and caramel flavour should stand entirely on their own.
On pastry: the traditional Solognot recipe uses pâte brisée (shortcrust), and the Confrérie considers puff pastry an inauthentic substitution. Practically speaking, puff pastry is what most French home cooks use today and it gives you a lighter, more dramatic result. Both are good. If you want to be truly traditional, use shortcrust.
The caramel must be genuinely dark. A timid, pale caramel tastes of sugar. A deep amber caramel tastes of something worth eating. Take it further than feels comfortable, right to the edge of dark without burning.
The flip works best at exactly 10 minutes of resting time. Too early and the tart falls apart. Too late and it sticks. Set a timer.
Tarte tatin is best eaten warm on the day it's made. It can be gently reheated in a low oven (150°C) for 10 minutes, but the pastry loses some of its crispness.

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