Easy Tarte Tatin

There's a special wonderful feeling when, after dinner, a friend says, "We could have gone out for dinner, but it wouldn't have been as good."

On to dessert...  this simple yet fancy-looking upside-down apple tart is a snap to make.  And though you can't bake it in advance, you can do some of the prep in the advance. The final prep and baking is a matter of about 30 minutes total — just enough time for dinner to settle.

Tarte Tatin
About three large apples or four medium ones.
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1/3 cup sugar (superfine/castor sugar, if you have it)
4 Tbs (2 oz) softened butter
1/4 cup or so of lemon juice

Set out the butter to soften. Peel the apples if you do not like the skins. Quarter and core them. Toss them in lemon juice. If you want, you can seal the apples in a container and refrigerate until you're ready to cook them.

Pre-heat oven to 425 F.  Spread the butter over the bottom and sides of a 8 or 9 inch glass pie pan or ovenproof omelett pan. If your apples are really large, you can use the larger pan. Pour the sugar over the butter. Line the apples, around the pan with skin-side down (or, if you removed the skins, what would have been the skin side down). You can either cook the apples on the stove top or put them in the oven until the butter and sugar have melted. Say about 10 minutes.

Roll the puff pasty out so that it's big enough to cut a 10 inch round out of it. Lay it gently over the apples and tuck in the edges. (If the heat is too much, you may find a knife or spatula useful for this.)

Bake at 425 F for 15 to 20 minutes.

Flip the tarte by placing a large plate face down over the top of the pan, grasp pan and plate firmly (wear oven gloves), and flip.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

And here's the whole tarte, flipped out on a serving place. I used green apples, thus the greenish cast to the baked apples. If you don't mind cooked apple skins, it's very pretty with the skins.

Updated July 2007: I'm not sure why I didn't post this the first time around. This Tarte Tatin recipe comes from Jenni Fleetwood's one-pot, slow-pot, and clay-pot cooking, an interestig collection of recipes ranging from traditional British stews to Indian and North African dishes.

Comments

[Peter]

Thank you so much for saving the day! Some friends and I were having a Loire Valley wine and food tasting, and I wanted an easy Tart Tatin recipe. Yours got rave reviews! So simple, and so good!

[Kitchen Chick]

Peter: I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the tart tartin. (The photo doesn't do it justice, does it?) I love baking with puff pasty. It's fun, and the results often look complex but are actually easy! This recipe comes from one-pot, slow-pot, and clay-pot cooking.