French · Dessert
Tarte Tatin
Apples cooked standing in a deep dry caramel before the pastry lid goes on — the upside-down icon, flipped hot for a lacquered crown
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 70 min
- Serves
- 8
Ingredients
- Firm apples (Braeburn/Cox/Reine des Reinettes) — 8 (about 1.4 kg)
- Caster sugar — 180 g
- Unsalted butter — 90 g
- Vanilla pod — 1/2
- Lemon juice — 15 ml
- All-butter puff pastry — 300 g
- Fine salt — 1 g
- Crème fraîche, to serve — 200 g
Method
- Peel, halve and core the apples; toss with lemon juice. Roll puff to 4 mm; cut a 26 cm disc; dock; chill.
- In a 24 cm ovenproof tatin pan, cook the sugar dry to a deep amber caramel.
- Off heat, whisk in butter, vanilla seeds and salt.
- Stand apple halves upright on their edges in tight concentric circles — pack more than looks reasonable; they shrink.
- Cook on the hob over medium heat 15–20 min, until the caramel bubbles up amber and the apples yield at the edges.
- Cap with the pastry disc, tucking the edge down inside the pan.
- Bake at 190 °C for 35–40 min until the pastry is deep gold and crisp.
- Rest exactly 10 min; place a plate over and invert with commitment. Rearrange any strays; spoon stray caramel over.