Tarte Tatin

Serves 6

This recipe is a hybrid of many many cookbooks. Many are inconvenient in that one needs a frying pan that goes in the oven (and fits in the oven) while others don’t coat the apples in caramel. The recipe was invented by the Tatin sisters at the beginning of the 20th century. You can also adapt the recipe to your taste by using pears, nectarines or mangoes instead of apples.

Ingredients

• 125 g salted butter,

• 1 egg,

• 200 g plain flour,

• 50 g icing sugar.

For the apples:

• 60 g butter,

• 100 g sugar,

• 1.6-2 kg apples.

Preparation

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, add the egg and mix well. Sift the flour and mix until it comes together in a ball. Add a little water if the pastry appears dry. Wrap in a plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180ºC.

Peel, quarter and core the apples. Melt the butter in a frying pan with the sugar and bring to the boil until it caramelises and turns brown. Coat the apples in the caramel over the heat and cook for 10-15 minutes until they soften. Cook off any liquid by increasing the heat, as the caramel should be quite thick. Dispose the apples and caramel in a greased baking tray.

Roll the pastry out and cut out a disk that will cover the baking tray. Tuck the edges of the pastry into the dish and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Turn out rapidly on a dish, shake to make sure the apples have not stuck to the dish and serve warm with cream or ice cream.