Tarte Tatin - Recette du jour

A really, simple french dessert


Now, this thing here is really excellent ... it's a typical french dessert that's best eaten with fresh cream straight out of the oven.

Even so, i'm partial to it the next day, with a nice cup of tea, when/if there's some left over from the night before.

There is supposedly a history behind it : two sisters (les soeurs Tatin, naturally) had a restaurant in central France and one day the chef knocked over a simple apple tart onto the floor.

Rather than throw it away and incur the fearsome wrath of the sisters, he simply picked it up, put it all upside down into a baking tin and put it discretely into the oven (yeewww).

The dish was an immediate success, often copied in other restaurants but never matched.

Tarte Tatin

Preparation : 30 minutes (+/- )
Cooking : 20 minutes (+/-)

Ingredients :

For 7-8 people

7 or 8 average sized apples
4 table spoons of sugar
70g of butter
300g of Pastry - any type, but, it's_always_much_better_home_made

Method :

1) Peel the apples, cut in half remove the core.
2) Put the butter into a round cake tin (with at least 4 to 5 cm's depth) and melt over a low flame.
3) As soon as the butter has melted, and away from the flame, put in 3 tablespoons of sugar and the apples, tightly pressed together - sprinkle the last tablespoon of sugar on top.
4) Put the tin back onto a low flame and leave to cook for about 10-15 minutes until a caramel forms at the bottom of the tin - do not allow it burn or go black - press lightly on the apples.
5) Take the pastry and cut it slightly larger than the cake tin - there needs to be a margin of about 3 to 4 cm's around it.
6) Place the pastry on top of the apples and gently force the edges in around the space between the apples and the tin.
7) Cook at thermostat 7/8 (220°) for 15 to 20 minutes until the crust is golden.
8) Place a flat plate on top of the tin and turn it over.
9) Take a knob of butter and run it over the surface of the apples and sprinkle with a little sugar.

Serve straight away with either fresh cream, ice cream ... or horror of horrors - custard ;-)

* Variations : this could be made with pears, apricots (be extremely careful at stage 4) or even as a svoury version with tomatoes ... there are no limits as to the possibilities.

Image_found_on_google