Easy Tarte Tatin - classic French Tarte

I adore Tarte Tatin, and have tried many different recipes.  This is an amalgamation of several, but using Raymond Blanc's presentation style.  Tarte Tatin is unusual in that it is made with eating apples, cooked in caramel with a lemony tang, with a pastry top that then becomes the base when you turn the tarte out.   Ready-rolled puff pastry makes everything so much quicker!  You can also use a rich shortcrust (add 1 egg and .5oz/15g icing sugar to the mix).   The picture below shows that I should have cooked it a bit longer, but it still tasted great.

Easy Tarte Tatin

Tarte Tatin

3oz/75g butter

3oz/75g light muscovado sugar

about 6 dessert apples (Braeburn or Cox)

rind of a lemon, finely grated, plus juice

Ready-rolled puff pastry, cut to about ½”/1cm wider than the diameter of the tin. 

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.   Grease a 8-9” solid based tin (otherwise the juices leak!).    Peel, core and quarter the apples, and arrange them tightly in the tin, standing up (you may need 1 more apple than you think).     Put the sugar, butter and lemon rind/juice into a pan and boil together until it has started to thicken.    Pour the delicious juice over the apples, then cover with the pastry, pressing the edges down tightly to seal it all in.  

Cook for at least 30 minutes, covering the pastry after about 20 minutes or it will get too brown before the inside has cooked.   When it is ready, the pastry should have shrunk slightly from the sides.   Timings aren’t exact here, as it will depend on your oven.

Turn the tart out onto a plate, so that the pastry is now on the bottom, and pour over any remaining juice.  If there is a lot of juice, put it into a small pan and reduce it by boiling it for a few minutes (if you have time!)  This is delicious with crème fraiche, cream, yoghurt or crème anglaise (English custard).