This iconic French cake has a curious history. Between 1894 and 1906, two French sisters ran the family hotel “Hotel Tatin” in Lamotte Beuvron, a small village about 200 km from Paris.
It seems that one of the two Tatin sisters put the caramelized apples in the oven and forgot about the pastry, which was added later. This is how the upside-down cake was born. It seems that this story was then told by the very famous food critic Maurice Curnonsky, making it the most famous French cake in the world. Reality, or a clever myth for marketing purposes?
I like it very much, and every time I go to France, I try to eat at least one slice. For some years, I have also been preparing it at home with the recipe from the blog “Les secrets de Muriel,” which I have adapted.
Tarte Tatin
- Preparation time: 120 minutes
- For a 24cm cake tin
- Difficulty: Average difficult recipe
- Ingredients
- For the shortcrust pastry:
- 125 g of butter
- 250 g of all-purpose flour
- 30 g of water
- 1 egg
- A pinch of salt
- For the caramel:
- 200 g of granulated sugar
- 30 g of butter
- For the apples:
- 8 golden apples (in the original recipe, 14)
- The juice of one lemon
- Butter to taste
- Instructions
- Prepare the shortcrust pastry. Place the flour and cold butter in the food processor. Pulse the processor a couple of times until the butter is completely “sanded.”
Add the egg, salt, and water, working the dough very little with a few more pulses. Compact it into a ball, cover it with cellophane, and leave it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. - Cut the apples into four wedges. Peel them and remove the core. Put them in water with the lemon juice to prevent them from blackening.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Meanwhile, prepare the caramel. In a saucepan, add one spoonful of sugar at a time, adding the next one only when all the crystals have dissolved well.
- Never mix in the first phase. Rather, shake the saucepan, making sure that the caramelization is uniform and that the sugar does not burn. Once you have reached the desired color (a nice, intense hazelnut), add the butter and mix well until completely absorbed.
- Butter the pan well, then pour the still boiling caramel on the bottom. Place the apple segments on the baking tray.
- Bake in the oven for thirty minutes. Cover with foil if they darken too much.
- At this point, take the pan out of the oven and lightly press the apples with a weight (a lid is fine) until they are well compacted on the bottom of the pan and all the same thickness.
- Leave to rest for about thirty minutes.
- Roll out the shortcrust pastry with a rolling pin. Cut it slightly larger than the diameter of the cake pan. Roll the dough with the rolling pin and transfer it into the pan. Fold the outer part slightly inwards to recover as much as possible, curling and pushing the dough inwards onto the surface of the cake with a knife. Cook for another forty minutes.
- Remove it from the oven and wait at least ten minutes before placing it on the serving plate.
- Serve warm, with the accompaniment of whipped cream.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- The sandblasted (or 2able) method consists of working the fat and flour together until you obtain a mass that has a consistency similar to sand.
- Making caramel is a potentially dangerous process, so never let children do it.
- When I put the lid on the apples, if I notice that there is too much liquid, I take it out with a spoon and put it in a saucepan. I let this liquid reduce slightly, then use it to polish the cake once cooked.
- Don’t wait too long to place the cake on the serving plate, as otherwise it will remain stuck to the pan.
