This French classic turns the Puritan plain apple pie on its head. Instead of soft clouds of sweetly sour fruit tucked beneath a comforting blanket of biscuity pastry, the tatin brazenly displays its wares, stickily caramelised and decadently buttery, on the outside – the humble base reduced to a mere vehicle for the apples in their sugary finery.
It's one of those dishes with a picturesque, but suspect heritage; legend has it that Stéphanie Tatin, proprietor of a provincial French hotel, left apples for a pie cooking for too long on the stove one day. Alerted to her mistake by the smell of burning, quick-thinking Madame attempted to rescue the situation by covering them with pastry and baking the pie anyway. "After turning out the upside down tart," Wikipedia concludes, "she was surprised to find how much the hotel guests appreciated the dessert." Not the first time a chef has tried to pass off a mistake as a special.
Larousse Gastronomique spoils this charming little anecdote, however, with the bald fact that "the upside-down tart, made with apples or pears, is an ancient speciality of Sologne and is found throughout Orléanais." But still, berets off to les soeurs Tatin for bringing it to wider attention – it's a real corker.
The pastry
So unimportant is the pastry base in this particular tart that, unusually in Gallic cuisine, one has a certain freedom to drape whatever sort one likes on top of the apples – because really, it's besides the point. Larousse's recipe opts for shortcrust but concedes that "Alternatively, puff pastry can be used instead".
These seem to be the two most popular options, although a minority, including magicien pâtissier Pierre Hermé, plump for pâte sucrée instead. With Julia Child and Larousse leading the shortcrust charge, ranged against the might of Raymond Blanc and Britain's finest pastry chef, Claire Clark, formerly of the French Laundry, in the puff camp, this was going to be a keenly contested battle.
Pitting Clark's recipe, from her excellent recipe book, Indulge, against the Larousse version, it's a tough one to call. In the puff's favour, it crisps up sensationally well, which makes a lovely contrast to the butter-soft fruit above. However, as the tart cools slightly, the juices soak into it, making it sadly soggy, which edges me towards the more robust shortcrust. The latter also has the benefit of a becoming plainness, which offsets the rich topping beautifully, and which sways me finally in its favour. (Although, if you're serving the tarte straight from the oven, puff is worth a thought.)
The apples
Most recipes simply specify dessert apples; the floury qualities that make cookers so wonderfully fluffy in a pie are entirely wrong for a tarte tatin, where the fruit must hold its shape throughout the cooking process. Claire suggests Braeburn, "as they do not break up during cooking", while Raymond recommends Cox's, and Jamie Oliver's modestly titled World-Famous Tarte Tatin calls for a mixture of sweet and acidic varieties. After trying all three, I decide on a half-and-half ratio of Cox's, which are spicier and more interesting than Braeburns, and Granny Smiths, which help to balance the extreme sweetness of the caramel coating.
As I've already discovered with my pastry test, although a tarte tatin shouldn't be dry, too much liquid spoils the pastry, so I'm intrigued by a tip from the Gordon Ramsay empire: peel the fruit the day before, and then leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight to dry out.
It doesn't sound appetising, I admit, but given the apples ought to be golden brown with caramel in any case, a little oxidisation is neither here nor there with this dish. When I make the Raymond Blanc recipe, I do two versions, one with freshly prepared fruit, and one following the Ramsay method. The pre-prepared apples stay firmer and plumper than the just-peeled sort, with the butter and sugar providing enough moisture to keep things pleasantly juicy.
Traditionally the apples are arranged upright in concentric circles, but, pretty as this looks, it means that only a small section of each piece of fruit is caramelised. I prefer the lazier method of using apple halves arranged round-side down, as suggested by Claire Clark, to cover the base of the dish – it's much easier, and gives a greater surface area for toffee coverage.
The method
For such a simple concept – caramelise apples, top with pastry, bake – there's a surprising divergence of method concerning tartes tatin. The simplest, from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has me assembling the tart (butter and sugar, topped with apples and more butter and sugar, followed by pastry) in a cake tin and putting the whole lot straight in the oven. It's certainly the least fussy, but the pastry is soggy with juice, and, despite my best efforts at caramelising the apples retrospectively under the grill, as suggested, they never get beyond a pale tan.
Raymond Blanc meanwhile, in his Foolproof French Cooking, suggests making a caramel from sugar and water first, and then using this, mixed with butter, to coat the bottom of the baking tin, before topping with the apples and pastry. Although the apples are jammy sweet, they don't really seem to have caramelised except on the top, and as for his orders to leave the tart to cool completely before removing it from the tin – that way chipped bakeware and frayed tempers lie.
Claire Clark begins in the same way as Julia Child, assembling the tart in one piece in a cold pan, but instead of putting it straight in the oven, the tart simmers on the hob, pastry and all, for 15 minutes before baking. Presumably this is supposed to caramelise the sugars, but, despite using the size of pan specified, mine just keeps boiling over spectacularly, and after 25 minutes, anxious of overcooking the fruit, I put it in the oven anyway, regardless of any "golden caramel colour". (To be fair, my Jersey butter is fairly golden to start with, so it's difficult to tell.) Despite the clearing up involved, the results are hands down my favourite to date – all the butter has given Claire's tart a wonderfully fudgy flavour.
Larousse does things slightly differently, putting a pan of butter, sugar and apples on the hob to caramelise. "The mixture will rise as it boils and coats the apples," it says helpfully as the thing spews molten butter on to my hob, "remove from the heat to prevent it from boiling over". What it doesn't say is what to do if it persists in boiling over, while singularly failing to caramelise – as with Claire's recipe, with a pan packed full of fruit, it's rather difficult to assess the exact colour of the liquid beneath. Once I manage to coax it to a buttercup colour, I must allow it to cool completely before adding the pastry lid and baking. Although there's so much butter that it needs to be drained before serving (or presented in a bowl), the pastry is the crispest yet, which I attribute to the cold fruit beneath.
Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course follows the Larousse template, although they allow the butter and sugar to turn golden before adding the fruit to the pan and cooking until you achieve a "dark caramel colour". "Hold your nerve", the book advises kindly, "or it will be too pale". I never get as far as that dark colour (which I can't help feeling suggests an unpleasant burnt flavour of the kind that, however authentic, I can't ever quite warm to) but, with something vaguely approaching toffeeish in the bag, and the hob threatened again, I stick the pan, without pastry, into the oven for 15 minutes. Then, and only then, is it time for the pastry – but 15 minutes on the hob, and 45 minutes in the oven renders the fruit rather mushier than might be considered desirable.
I conclude that Raymond Blanc's method of creating the caramel first, with no apples to complicate proceedings, is the easiest to execute, although I'll be using more butter and sugar, as his tart, while juicy, lacked the buttery richness of Larousse and Claire Clark's versions. Adding the apples to the hot pan also seems advisable if they're to caramelise properly, but, this done, I'm going to leave them to cool completely before adding the pastry and baking, so the crust is as crisp and crisp can be. Pastry might be no big deal to the French, but I come from a proud land of pie fanciers.
Flavourings
Julia Child adds cinnamon to her apples, and Jamie Oliver suggests vanilla and calvados. The two spices are de trop – the only flavour here should be apples – but I am tempted by the heady scent of the brandy, which soaks into the fruits as they cook. Eventually, however, I decide it makes the tarte slightly too redolent of a boozy Christmas cake; seductive, but hardly true to the spirit of the original dish.
Perfect tarte tatin
Toffee apples for grown-ups, the tarte tatin is all about the flavour of the fruit – crisp pastry, firm, juicy apples and that sweet, buttery caramel topping, holding the whole lot together. We may grow the best varieties, but the French really know what to do with them.
Serves 6
7 medium apples: 4 Cox, 3 Granny Smith
200g white sugar
50g butter
175g ready-made shortcrust pastry OR
225g plain flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
120g cold butter
1 medium egg, beaten
1. Peel, halve and core the apples, then put in the fridge, uncovered, for 24 hours.
2. Put the sugar into a 20cm heavy-based ovenproof frying pan along with 50ml water and leave to soak for a couple of minutes, then cook over a medium heat until golden and fudgy. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, and a pinch of salt, until well combined, then 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 5 minutes, then take off the heat and allow to cool completely.
3. If making the pastry, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the sugar and a pinch of salt. Grate in the butter, then rub together until it is coarse crumbs.
4. Mix the egg with 2 tsp cold water and sprinkle 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 clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before rolling out.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Roll out the pastry (you'll probably have some left over if you've made your own) to 5mm thick, and cut out a circle slightly larger than your pan. Put back into the fridge to rest.
6. Put the pastry on top of the pan and tuck in the edges around the fruit. Bake for about 30 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 and then, very carefully, using oven gloves, invert the tart on to the plate. Best served warm, with crème fraîche.
Is tarte tatin the queen of apple-based desserts, or do you prefer a strudel, a crumble, a Charlotte, or even a good old-fashioned apple pie? What kind of pastry do you use, and how far do you go down the route of caramelisation?
