Tarte Tatin
A nod to the Tatin sisters and a handshake promise to just go ahead and make good on your mistakes in the kitchen. Grab an apple and join me.
Dearest readers:
Ringing in February with enthusiasm, however feigned through this ice storm that has taken Nashville by it’s annual surprise. Every year we forget that it can get cold and every year we behave as if it has never happened before. I am moving room to room with my heating pad and thinking about how spring seems like a wish that will never come true. I never cared about the cold but these days, I just want heat and sweat and salty seawater and the sound of seabirds and the smell of suntan lotion and fruit stands on the boardwalk. Anyway. We can’t have that yet and we may as well bide some time with our cats and our caramel and our winter fruits like apples and citrus and our security heating blankets.
A few weeks ago, my business partner in Reverie and very good sister pal Julie did an IG reel with a quick little tutorial on one of my favorite French desserts of all time, the beloved Tarte Tatin. I love it for its sweet simplicity, mostly.
Pie dough, apples, sugar, butter, some vanilla - a poem really, in its basic appeal.
Invented in the late 1800’s by the Tatin sisters who owned a railway hotel (Hôtel Tatin) in the small town of Lamotte-Beuvron, Loir-et-Cher just south of Paris, this upside down beauty was said to have been accidentally created because, in a moment of frenzied and overworked distraction, one of the sisters (specifically Stéphanie, who did most of the cooking), overcooked the apples she had meant to put into an apple pie. Like any good cook, Stéphanie decided to improvise. She added butter, arranged the apples to make them more civilized on the bottom of the pan, and then geniusly topped it with a pie dough round, throwing it in the oven with a lick and a promise to try to salvage it. Salvage it she did. Customers raved. Stéphanie became an apple hero. And, et voila, a gorgeous Tarte Tatin was born into the world and we’ve never looked back. Viva la Tatin.
I hope you’ll make it, wherever you are and whatever your weather.
And I hope it will encourage you to remember that mistakes in the kitchen are really just new discoveries and opportunities and all that. If you can eat it, it’s not fucked. Extra points if you can make it taste better than your intended recipe and create a hundred and fifty year old classic in the meantime.
Tarte Tatin
1 recipe Lisa Donovan pie dough
4-5 apples (think Pink Lady or Granny Smith, firm and tart)
Pinch of salt
Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
100 g or 1/2 cup sugar
3 TBSP butter for caramel
2 TBSP butter, melted
(1) Preheat oven to 375° F. Peel and quarter apples and remove the core. Add a good pinch of salt and vanilla, stir.
(2) Pour sugar into a heavy bottomed pan (we used cast iron). Place over medium heat and allow sugar to caramelize. Do not stir. Once sugar has reached a deep caramel color, take off heat. Add butter and stir.
(3) Arrange apples on top of caramel with cut side facing up. Put into oven for about 20 minutes, until apples are just tender.
(3)While apples cook, roll out pie dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Using a plate or a bowl, cut a circle just larger than the diameter of your pan. Place into freezer to chill - this will maximize flakiness !
(4) When apples are tender, pull from oven and brush with melted butter. Then, place your pie dough on top of the apples and tuck the edges around the edge of the apples.
(5) Bake for another 25-30 minutes until crust is golden. Pull from oven, let rest for 10 minutes, and then flip onto a serving plate. If you’ve waited too long and the caramel has hardened, pass the pan over low heat for 1 minute to soften caramel and allow of east release.
(6) Serve with crème fraîche or whipped cream. Bon appétit !