FOOD PORN #03: Tarte tatin!

 Bonjour lovely Steemies! So I've taken you on journeys to Persia and the UK...now it's time to travel to la belle France! 

An absolute classic French dessert today- Tarte Tatin. It's a wonderful pud to make for a dinner party because it looks impressive, has few ingredients, can be partly made ahead, and most importantly tastes absolutely YUMMY. 

The crisp puff layers, the bite of the apple and the oozing, mouth-watering caramel- there's no other combination like it. 

You might find that there's different ways of making a tarte tatin; some cook the apples separately, some make a caramel and then add the butter. The method I'll be showing you today is the one that works best for me, having tried a fair few! Caramel can be tricky and even the best chefs can burn it. This method is pretty fool proof though.

Here's a little picture of me amongst my apple trees. The last apples of the year!

Interestingly, my last job was working as a pastry chef in a fine dining restaurant. I used to put tarte tatin on the menu when we had decent apples arriving in the kitchen. A few times we had French customers, and what would they order? Tarte tatin! No pressure Katie! Well the feedback was good, and the plates came back empty, so I went home happy. Perhaps the presentation helped...

Here's what you'll need- this is enough for 3 or 4 people...if you can bear to share! 

• 400g apples e.g. Cox's or Granny Smith- peeled, cored and quartered. I used some Ashmead Kernals which I hadn't used before in this recipe, but they kept their shape and took on the sweetness of the caramel very well.
• 50g unsalted butter
• 45g dark brown sugar
• 45g caster sugar
• 1 ready-rolled puff pastry sheet

You'll need a non-stick frying pan. Ideally I'd use an oven-proof frying pan so that I didn't have to transfer the apples and caramel into a dish, but I'm working from a rural, ill-equipped French kitchen today, so I don't have one! So I also use a shallow oven-proof dish. 

Here's what to do:

1.  Preheat the oven to 220c.
2. Sauté the apples in a little of the butter on a medium heat until lightly brown. You don't want to cook them for too long because they'll go mushy- you want them to keep some of their bite.
3. Add the rest of the butter and both sugars. Allow it to melt and caramelise.
   
4. Carefully remove the apples and place them in the oven-proof dish in one layer. 
5. Let the caramel bubble away and turn a beautiful amber colour, then pour this on top of your apples.
6. Refrigerate until cold.
7. Unroll your pastry sheet and cut a circle to the size of your dish.
8. Place the pastry over the apples and tuck down the edges. Prick a few holes in the pastry to let the steam escape.
9. Chill again for 20-30 minutes to relax the pastry.
10. From chilled bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.
11. Here's the trickiest bit... turn out on to a plate so the apples are on top. Be careful- that caramel is super super hot!
12. I've served mine with a spoonful of mascarpone mixed with the seeds of half a vanilla pod- it cuts through the sweet caramel really nicely, but you could equally serve it with double cream, creme fraiche or ice-cream.
13. Pour yourself a nice glass of Sauternes, practice your cheesy French accent and tuck in. Bon appetit!

That's all for today lovely Steemies! See you soon! A bientot! XXX