Tarte Tatin | Mastering the Art of French Cooking

I could imagine Julia Child baking the tarte tatin, an upside-down apple tart, and fumbled in the final step of inverting the tarte. Then she turned around and made hilarious comments about flipping the tart while laughing out loud. Julia is such a phenomenal talent from whom we can learn a great deal. That includes not taking herself and the cooking too seriously. We can all take note on her style of no-nonsense and no-stress baking!

There is much too much to stress about these days, lest the kind of baking apples to use, all-purpose or gluten-free flour, homemade pie crust or store-bought. I choose the path of least resistance — no grocery shopping. Time to accept life limitations of which we have no control. Hence, I’m rolling with Julia’s tarte tatin recipe with a bag of “whatever” apples, flour, sugar and butter. Fortunately, there is little else you need!

The first step is to make the sweet short pastry (pâte brisée sucrée) on page 633 in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I stare at the page for a long time wondering how to proceed. Go or no go since I’ve never made the recipe before. This cookbook was first published in 1970. Since then, contemporary baking starts with measuring the ingredients precisely with a scale. More than that, I can’t quite figure out whether the dough is going to be sticky, finicky or not.

This is when experience matters as to which way to go. Subsequently, I compare the recipe with some of my goto dough recipes on this blog. The recipe looks decidedly manageable. Next I need to devise a plan of attack. Take out the food processor, parchment paper and a rolling pin. Make sure the butter is chilled and the water is ice cold. Extra flour and ice water on standby. Notably, there’s less to do with experience and more to do with preparations which get me over the hump.

I mix all the dry ingredients in the food processor. Scatter pieces of butter over the mixture. Pulse a few times until you get small flake-sized pieces with some larger pea-sized lumps. Then slowly drizzle in the cold water, a little at a time. Work in long pulses until the dough holds together when you pinch it.

Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it into a disk and roll it onto a work surface between two large sheets of parchment paper. See instructions below for details. That’s a foolproof way I tackle a sticky dough — with parchment paper. Furthermore, there is no need to roll out a perfect round because you’ll be tucking in the edges over the apple pieces. Wrap up the pastry shell and refrigerate until you’re ready to bake. When you’re ready, leave it on the counter for a few minutes until it’s pliable to shape and fold without cracking.

With smaller apples on hand, I decide to cut them in halves. They’d take longer to bake as compared to thin apple slices as Julie did. Therefore, pre-cooking the apple halves in a caramelized sauce makes a lot of sense. By doing that, I also have some control over the color and texture of the apple and the amount of liquid in the tart. Besides, the last thing I want is a soggy tart bottom.

Is tarte tatin the queen of apple-based desserts, or do you prefer a strudel, a crumble, or even a good old-fashioned apple pie? One thing for sure: I like the idea of working through limitations and adapting the iconic tarte tatin to something more personal. Inverting a tarte can be harrowingly fun and whatever turns up is likely to be deletable!

Print Recipe

Tarte Tatin | Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• For the Tart Dough:
• 1 1/3 cup (150 grams) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 8 tablespoons (113 grams) chilled butter, diced
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) ice water, or as needed
• For the Tart Tatin:
• 6 firm cooking apples, cored, peeled and halved
• cinnamon (optional)
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups (200 grams) sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, as accompaniment

Instructions

1

MAKE THE SWEET SHORT PASTRY:

2

Place the flour in the bowl, mix in the sugar and salt, then proceed to make the dough either by hand or in the food processor. Mix in with 2 tsp cold water over the mixture. Mix together into a soft but not sticky dough, adding more water (if required) very gradually. Shape into a ball, and then cover with cling film. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before rolling out.

3

Roll out the pastry (you'll probably have some left over if you've made your own) to 1/8 inch thick, and cut out a circle slightly larger than your pan. Put back into the fridge to rest.

4

PREPARE THE APPLES:

5

Peel, halve and core the apples. Toss in a large bowl with the lemon juice and zest and 1/2 cup sugar. Drain the apples after macerating 20 minutes. Then put in the fridge.

6

CARAMELIZE THE APPLE HALVES:

7

Put the sugar into a 9 to 10-inch heavy-based ovenproof saute pan along with 50 ml water and leave to soak for a couple of minutes, then cook over a medium heat until the syrup bubbles and caramelizes, and turns a brown color. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, and a pinch of salt, until well combined.

8

Carefully arrange the apples in the pan, round-side down, bearing in mind the caramel will be very hot, and put back on the heat – you may need to cut some of the apples into smaller pieces to fill in the gaps. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Every few minutes press down on the apples and baste them with the exuded juices. When the juices are thick and syrupy, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool completely.

9

BAKE THE TARTE:

10

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

11

Put the pastry on top of the pan and tuck in the edges around the fruit. Bake for about 45 minutes until the pastry is golden, then remove from the oven. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Then place a plate, slightly larger than the pan, on top. Very carefully, using oven gloves, invert the tart onto the plate.

12

Best served warm, with crème fraîche or ice cream.

Notes

Adapted from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking