snowmade

Tarte Tatin in my New Pan

New year, new blog...sorta. It's not quite the new year, but it feels like it. I've opened up my gifts and have begun playing with them so it's new stuff at least.

New stuff: a 7-quart Kitchen Aid mixer from Williams-Sonoma. The biggest counter top Kitchen Aid in the world! (I think). Also got some great new pans, one of which I asked for specifically to do tarte tatin. I have a great cast iron, but I feel it's all meaty and would make the tarte tatin taste a little off putting. And finally my latest new stuff is a Staub 4-quart dutch oven. :) big smile! I actually got it as a free gift from purchasing the Kitchen Aid. Ya, the Kitchen Aid was that pricey, but I felt it was an investment well worth it.

So with the new stuff I made bagels and the tarte tatin and currently I have a boule rising in the mixing bowl ready to bake in the Staub in an hour.

The tarte tatin is the recipe I'm posting today. It's actually my second one this week. I didn't care for the first one and wanted to try again. I had made it in the spring in a class I took and wanted to recreate that one, but hadn't located the recipe so for the first one I used the recipe off of smittenkitchen.com. It was good (I'm sure the original recipe is great), I had made a few changes and wasn't super happy with the results (maybe you're thinking don't mess with the recipe and it would have been good...maybe).

For the first tarte tatin I had used granny smith apples and a pie dough. Which was good, but wasn't the tarte tatin I had envisioned and remembered.

So after much searching, I found the recipe I remembered!!!! From epicurious.com Tarte Tatin from Gourmet 2001

Now in true Snow fashion, I had to make some changes. So listed below is the adapted recipe. Also I found a quick puff pastry recipe from King Author that I feel is now my go to recipe for the puffy. I had broke down and decided I was going to purchase puff pastry dough, but came across this nice and easy recipe and viola! Winner!

Pretty, delicious tarte tatin

Puff Pastry
adapted from King Author Flour Fast and Easy Puff Pastry

• 2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt*
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup cold unsalted butter,* cut in pats
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt with honey (I used The Greek Gods brand)

• *If you use salted butter, reduce the amount of salt to 1/4 teaspoon

Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder.Add the butter, working it in to make a coarse/crumbly mixture. Leave most of the butter in large, pea-sized pieces.

Stir in the yogurt; the dough won't be cohesive. Turn it out onto a floured work surface, and bring it together with a few quick kneads. Pat the dough into a rough log, and roll it into an 8" x 10" rectangle.

Dust both sides of the dough with flour, and starting with a shorter end, fold it in three like a business letter. Flip the dough over, give it a 90° turn on your work surface, and roll it into an 8" x 10" rectangle. Fold it in three again.

Wrap the dough in cling wrap and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before using. To make pastry, roll into desired size. Freeze dough for prolonged storage, up to 2 months. To use, thaw in the refrigerator overnight.

Tarte Tatin
adapted from epicurious.com Tarte Tatin

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened 
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 ambrosia apples, peeled and sliced into quarters
• puff pastry (you have my permission to use frozen, but seriously give the recipe above a shot)

Prepare the puff pastry first and while it's chilling you will have time to start the tarte tatin, by the time you need the puff pastry it will have chilled adequately.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Melt butter on bottom a 10 inch skillet and pour sugar evenly over bottom, stir sugar and shake pan to evenly distribute butter/sugar mixture. Arrange as many apples as will fit in the sugar, packing them tightly in concentric circles.

Cook apples over moderately high heat, undisturbed, until juices are deep golden and bubbling, 18 to 25 minutes. (Don't worry if juices color unevenly.)

Put skillet in middle of oven and bake 20 minutes (apples will settle slightly), then remove from oven and lay pastry round over apples.

Bake tart until pastry is browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer skillet to a rack and cool at least 10 minutes.

Just before serving, invert a platter with lip over skillet and, using potholders to hold skillet and plate tightly together, invert tart onto platter. Replace any apples that stick to skillet. (Don't worry if there are black spots; they won't affect the flavor of the tart.) Brush any excess caramel from skillet over apples. Serve immediately.


For those of you curious, this is what the first tarte tatin looked like, not so pretty.

Not so pretty, only average tasting tarte tatin.