The Apple Pie Project: French

This month i decided to go for the home of fantastic dessert and Patisseries, France. Tarte Tatin is a sweet, simple and rustic style apple tart which is made upside down in a frying pan and then baked in the oven. This is also an unusual dish as in France hot desserts are rare, and this one comes with a fantastic story. The origins of this tart are that two sisters made the dish by mistake by cooking apples for an apple pie for too long in a pan, quick thinking led to adding a pastry top to the pan and then baking it in the oven, the results a sticky chewy caramel, accompanied by oval shaped apples and a thin crisp pastry base.  The French version of such a classic dish is so unique in flavour and look, that it’s defintaly an all time favorite.

What You Need:

Pastry: 2 egg yolks, 150g plain flour, 25g sugar, 100g butter

Filling: 5 eating apples, peels and cored (granny smith), 50g Butter, 100g sugar

Combine the flour and butter, to form bread crumbs and then add the sugar. Mix in the egg yolks with a knife and combine the ingredients until it forms a dough. Lightly need and the refrigerate for 20mins.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

In a nonstick frying pan with a metal handle, add the sugar and butter and heat on med/low until a nice yellow syrup has formed. Add the apples curve-side down and heat for 15mins, until they are golden brown and the syrup has turned to a brown sticky caramel.  Take the chilled pasty and roll out to fit the pan, place the pastry on top of the apple mixture and fold excess down the sides of the pan. Place in the oven for 20mins on 200C and then a further 20mins on 150c. Turn out onto a try or large plate and eat warm.

Enjoy.