---
title: Tarte Tatin
date: 2024-07-21 19:00:00
slug: FR-Tarte-Tatin
country: FR
tags:
  - dessert
  - pastry
---

<img src="https://static.garrettmills.dev/assets/blog-images/food/fr-tatin/tatin-1.jpg">

We'll conclude our initial exploration of French cuisine with something sweet: tarte Tatin. Making its first appearance in the late 1800s, the tarte Tatin got its name from sisters Caroline and Stéphanie Tatin of the Hôtel Tatin south of Paris.[^1] The tarte is characterized by caramelized fruit baked _beneath_ puff pastry, served upside down.

<img src="https://static.garrettmills.dev/assets/blog-images/food/fr-tatin/tatin_sisters.jpg">
<center>The Tatin sisters. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caroline_et_St%C3%A9phanie_Tatin.jpg" target="_blank">Source</a></center>

Whether you ascribe to the various mythical stories of the invention of the tarte Tatin, it's clear that other upside-down style pastries existed well before the late 1800s. It's likely the tarte Tatin was inspired as such.

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Our recipe for this week comes from the Andy Cooks cookbook.[^2] Andy Hearnden is a New Zealand-born chef who has worked under Michelin-star chefs and was the executive chef of Entrecôte, a Melbourne-based French restaurant. More recently, Hearnden is known for his social media presence, where he explores regional dishes as a home cook.

<img src="https://static.garrettmills.dev/assets/blog-images/food/fr-tatin/tatin-4.jpg">
<center>The ingredients used for this recipe.</center>

As with last week's onion soup, I was surprised how easy this was to pull together. Admittedly, I did cheat and leave out the single largest time commitment: making puff pastry [from scratch](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-puff-pastry-pate-feuilletee-recipe). Instead, I took Andy's recommendation and used a frozen sheet of pre-made. Yes, it probably would have been better to make my own; no I don't care.

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One snag I ran into immediately: Andy calls for [caster sugar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Caster), a much finer variety of granulated sugar. Caster sugar is useful in confectionery because it dissolves much faster than normal granulated sugar. I, however, could not find it at either of my two local grocers.

Instead, I opted to "fake it" and blitz an equivalent amount of normal granulated sugar in a high-powered blender for about a minute. I won't say it's a _perfect_ replacement, but this worked pretty well for me.[^3]

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I also took a moment to peel and slice some lovely honey-crisp apples I got from a local farmers' market, and lightly grease a cake tin.[^4]

Next comes the most nerve-wracking part of the entire process: making a caramel. This is a bit of a fickle process since, given an opportunity, the sugar will crystallize in the pan, ruining the caramel.

The biggest way to avoid this -- as Andy directs -- is to swirl the caramel during cooking, but never stir it. It's also better to use a stainless steel pot, but the only sauce pot I had available was non-stick.

After carefully dribbling the water in the pan, swirl occasionally over medium heat until the caramel is a nice dark amber color. For me, this took about 15 minutes.[^5]

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Once the caramel is dark enough, add in the apples. Andy says to swirl these in, but I found it hard to incorporate them properly, so I used a silicon spatula.

The caramel immediately seized when I added the fruit, but a few minutes of swirling/occasionally coaxing crystallized chunks back into the liquid convinced it back to a liquid.

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The apples are then spread into an even layer on the bottom of the cake pan. If you take great care to arrange the apples in a pattern, it pays off when the dish is inverted. As you can see, mine is... rustic.

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Next, the puff pastry is cut to a diameter just a bit larger than the cake tin. It's then pressed down over the edges of the apples. This is what gives the final product a nice outer crust. Then, bake until done. Andy says 35 minutes, though mine went for about 45 minutes.[^6]

After cooling for about 5 minutes for the liquids to just start to set, invert the pastry to reveal the lovely caramelized underside. Top with vanilla ice cream for the aesthetic.

<img src="https://static.garrettmills.dev/assets/blog-images/food/fr-tatin/tatin-19.jpg">

I really enjoyed this dessert. Unsurprisingly, it's a similar flavor profile to an apple pie, but the caramel lends a richer, deeper flavor. It also has the bonus of being fairly painless to pull together in the world of [fussy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaron) [French](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profiterole) [desserts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choux_pastry).

One thing I'm learning about myself: I tend to play it safe when cooking something outside my wheelhouse. But, this usually results in _slight_ disappointment in the final product. Here, again: I wish I'd taken the caramel darker and baked the pastry longer. But, all in all, it was an enjoyable way to wrap up our exploration of french cuisine.

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All images in this post were taken by me, with the exception of the photo of the Tatin sisters. That photo was sourced from [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caroline_et_St%C3%A9phanie_Tatin.jpg) in the public domain. My dog-eared copy of "Andy Cooks: The Cookbook" was a Christmas gift.

[^1]: Here's me once again [citing Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_Tatin).

[^2]: Page 181, if you must know...

[^3]: I imagine a spice grinder would have been even better for this task. Or, you know, ordering actual caster sugar. Fun fact, it's called "caster sugar" because it's fine enough to come out of a ["sugar caster."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_caster)

[^4]: Andy's recipe is actually for _pear_ tarte Tatin, but I wanted to use apples as that's the more traditional variant.

[^5]: You can see another "danger zone" if you zoom in on the pictures from the caramel process. When tiny bits of caramel stick to the sides of the pot and dry, then can serve as the initial crystals the rest of the caramel needs to seize. I've seen recommendations to brush down the sides of the pan w/ a wet pastry brush, but it seems I got lucky this time.

[^6]: Honestly, it could have stood to go even longer. This would have made the pastry crisper and the caramel darker, but live and learn.
