Real Original Authentic Tarte Tatin
Along with half the country, I have been baking my way through this pandemic. I’ve been sticking mostly to French recipes since we just returned to the US from two years in Paris and we really miss the food. One of my all time favorite recipes, because it’s both super easy and wonderfully delicious is Tarte Tatin, or basically upside-down apple tart. It is truly an upper-right quadrant treat.
I claim it’s easy and delicious but every time I post a picture of my latest effort on facebook my brother makes a suggestion as to how to improve it. Now, my brother is an accomplished, professional chef with his own food blog so he really knows what he’s talking about. I should really pay attention to him but I’m having trouble deciphering what he thinks is the perfect Tarte Tatin. It’s clearly different than whatever it is that I’m making but he’s never shared his own recipe or any photographs of the finished product so I’m left to guess, post pictures, and wait (usually less than an hour) for his feedback.
This is a bit of an inside joke because in France the word “feedback” (they use the English word all the time) is synonymous with “criticism.” The French appear to harbor a deep-seated religious objection to any kind of positive feedback (unless it’s directed at a superior); I’ll cover this in a future post.
The other day my wife Heather was scouring YouTube for the latest cute animal videos when she happened across a French video that not only describes the story behind the tarte Tatin but also provides the original recipe. Except the original recipe doesn’t really exist because the original Tarte Tatin was the result of a fortuitous accident. For those of you who don’t speak French, I’ll translate the story which starts at 01:32 in the video. I’ll also translate the recipe itself a bit further down in this post.
It’s in 1898 that Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin would accidentally invent their famous dessert. The same kind of serendipity that gave us Roquefort cheese, velcro, and x-rays gave us the tarte Tatin. One day Caroline was delayed by a customer in the reception area. She arrived in the kitchen in a rush and quickly baked an apple tart. However when she went to plate the tart it flipped over. Having no time to bake a second one from scratch she put the upside-down tart back in the oven and that is how the tarte Tatin was born.
That’s the story according to the video at least. The Tatin Hotel website describes a slightly different sequence of events. Firstly it says that Stéphanie, not Caroline was the guilty party. Secondly it says that she simply forgot to put the crust down when baking the pie and just added it on top after the fruit had already started baking.
The video describes how chef Olaf Pezard’s learned to make tarte Tatin during his chef training and then later couldn’t pass up the opportunity to acquire the original hotel and kitchen where the Tatin sisters invented their eponymous tart.
The town of Lamotte-Beuvron is just south of Orléans, about an hour south of Paris by train.
The Recipe
Firstly you’re going to need butter, a lot of butter. Preferably you should own your own dairy cow, be comfortable with milking it, and know how to operate a butter churn. Barring that, put on your mask and sanitize your shopping cart and get it at the store.
Prep time is probably a half hour and bake time is 2 hours. The dough for the crust should rest in the fridge for an hour so you’ll need to make it earlier and bring it out to roll after you’ve peeled and quartered the fruit.
You’ll want to eat the tart not long after it comes out of the oven so plan on the tart baking during dinner unless you’re having it for breakfast in which case you’d better get up really early to milk your cow, churn your butter, and then make the tart.
The Crust
- 170g (1 1/2 cups) of flour
- 70g (1/3 cup) of butter
- 70g (1/3 cup) of sugar
- 1 egg
- ice water as necessary
Why sugar in the crust? You’re going to end up baking the whole thing with the crust on top. The sugar in the crust actually caramelizes making it exquisitely chewy.
Anyway, put the flour, sugar, the egg and small pieces of butter in a bowl or food processor and mix together thoroughly. Add tiny amounts of ice water (by the teaspoon) at the end until you end up with a thick dryish batter that you can roll up into a ball. In the video chef Pezard puts a moist cloth over the dough and lets it rest in the refrigerator.
The Filling
- 2kg (4 1/2 pounds) of apples. Chef Pezard recommends les golden delicious which as far as I know is not a traditional French apple variety. It is one which has invaded France though so it’s readily available there. Since the whole tart is going to be extremely sweet you may prefer a tarter apple such as a Granny Smith. You can also drive a stake straight through the heart of 122 years of culinary tradition and use pears. That’s what I like to use but I’m a cooking blasphemer; I was lucky to escape the guillotine in France.
- 130g (2/3 cup) of sugar. Dang, that’s a lot of sugar. Next time I bake one of these I’m going to try 1/2 cup and see how that works out.
- 80g (just over 1/3 cup) of butter. See why you need a cow?
The most time consuming part of baking this tart is peeling, coring and quartering all the pears (I MEANT APPLES!) After that it’s easy peasy:
- put the sugar on the bottom of the pan, shake to spread it out uniformly
- put pats of butter all over the sugar
- start arranging the fruit in as artistic a manner as you can. Remember that your bottom layer of fruit is going to be the top of your tart so strive for spectacular! If you watch the video (at 4:48) chef Pezard puts the round side of the apples down, arranging them in a floral pattern. Then he just dumps the rest of the fruit in because that’s not going to be visible.
- roll out your crust and place over the fruit. Lightly push down the edges of the crust along the side of your pan. Some juice will seep up around the edges of the crust during baking but if everything went well all the sugar, butter, and pear (I MEAN APPLE) juice will caramelize.
Now put the whole thing in the oven for 2 hours at 200C (390F) and go entertain your guests.
When you pull it out of the oven it might look something like:
My brother commented that my crust looked weird. It appears the dough has molded itself to the fruit. No matter, that layer is going to be on the bottom and the 3D effect will disappear.
Before you flip the tart, put it on the stove at high heat for a minute or two, spinning the pan lightly from side-to-side. This helps prevent the pears (I give up, sorry apples…) from sticking and puts the final touch on the caramel.
Now put a big serving plate over the pan and carefully flip the whole thing without dropping your creation on the floor and getting 2nd degree burns in the process. This may take some practice, watch the video at the 0:16 mark. If you do drop your tart on the floor please take a picture and link it to the bottom of this post as a lesson for others in what not to do.
You should end up with something like:
The beauty of this recipe is that, beyond it being historically correct, it skips the annoying half hour of stirring butter and sugar together to make caramel that most other recipes require. All the caramelization happens in the oven while you’re busy having drinks with your friends. The other benefit is that the fruit is cooked all the way through. It ends up being tender, juicy, perfect!
If you find that there is not enough butter and sugar in your tart you can always compliment it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream but it really does stand quite well on its own.
