Tarte Tatin

I'm not usually a fan of attempting french baking at home, I find it far too fiddly and complicated, and, given that my parents live in France, I am fortunately able to leave the delicacy of patisserie to the experts. I have little desire to whip egg whites to make macarons, when there is a man down the road who I can pay to do much the same thing, with a whole lot more finesse.

Tarte tatin is an upside down apple tart, in which the apples are slow cooked soaking in caramel, with a layer of crisp pastry above. The proportions of this recipe are relatively tricky, and it is challenging to get the tart with not too much caramel, but with enough apple and pastry. A trick I always follow, to get the right amount of pastry, and to get it thin enough, is to make a half batch of pastry, this ensures that you won't have left over pastry, and that it will be thin enough. You will also need to decide how dark you want your caramel, my parents love everything bitter, so I made my caramel very dark, if you prefer your caramel slightly paler, reduce the cooking time of the caramel.

Start by melting in a pan, the butter with the caster sugar, while this is melting together peel, core and halve your apples, and put them in a bowl with lemon zest and juice, and a little sugar, leave them to steep, by which time your caramel should be starting to brown. Turn off the heat under the caramel and place the apples in the pan round side down. Use a spoon to cover the apples in the caramel and put the pan in the oven.

Next make your pastry, and roll it out very thinly, the pastry should be more of a base for the apples, and not the main event, so fir this reason I use a simple unsweetened shortcrust pastry. Remove the apples from the oven and cover them gently with the pastry, working fast to not melt the butter, push the pastry into between the apples and bake it in a medium hot oven until the pastry is crisp and golden, and cooked through.

Turn the tart out onto a serving dish and serve when cooled.

Ingredients

For the Filling
6 Golden Delicious apples cored, peeled and halved
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
pinch salt

For the Pastry
110g plain flour
50g butter
pinch salt