Photo by Joseph Schamber

If you go apple picking this fall, chances are you will come back with far too many apples than you know what to do with. Luckily, this tarte Tatin can help you use the delicious fall fruit so it does not go to waste.

tarte Tatin is an upside-down French pastry invented by the Tatin sisters in the late 1800s. Allegedly, Stéphanie Tatin was making an apple pie but forgot to place the crust at the bottom, creating the recipe.

In a hurry, she quickly laid the dough across the top of the pie and baked it in the oven. She then inverted it onto a serving dish and discovered the apples had beautifully caramelized. Thus, tarte Tatin was born.

There are a few ways to make tarte Tatin. The classic method is to make a caramel to mix with your apples, place them in a separate pan, cover with pastry dough and bake until golden brown.

In my opinion, this method makes what can be a simple crowd pleaser for the average home baker, into a messy, disaster-prone dish. Making the caramel without burning the sugar or splattering yourself with hot sugar can be difficult, and the pan adds an extra dish.

The New York Times has a recipe from Gotham Bar and Grill that is much easier than the classic method. However, you can make it even simpler if you slice your apples thinner.

The thinner slices ensure no apples are left undercooked and allow the sugar syrup to soak between each slice. Slicing them this way leads to a less watery final product without taking the extra step to dry out the apple.

The biggest difference when using thinner slices is the texture. The apples will become very jammy and almost melt in your mouth. If you prefer a little more texture on the apple, you can slice the apples thicker, but I personally prefer them this way.

I like to add fall spices, and although I included my own recipe for them in the recipe below, you can also use a pumpkin spice.

While making your own pastry dough is half the fun, you can use puff pastry dough to save time. The ratios for this pastry dough recipe are adapted from Claire Saffitz’s Flaky Pie Crust.

If you have one, you can make the entire crust in a food processor. Mix the dry ingredients with very cold, diced butter, then stream in ice-cold water until just barely combined. Then, turn out the dough onto a work surface and follow the recipe below from there.

This recipe takes just over an hour from start to finish and can serve up to 8 people.

Pastry Dough:

1 ¾ cups (225g) All-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling.

1 ½  tbsps (18g) granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

10 tbsp (140g) unsalted butter, very cold

½ cup (110g) water, ice-cold

1. Combine the dry ingredients with the butter, cutting the butter into the flour with two forks until chunks of butter are about pea-sized.
2. Once thoroughly combined, stir in cold water until the dough is just starting to come together.
3. Turn out onto a parchment-lined work surface and bring the dough together with your hands until it forms a solid block. Flour the top of the block and lay a sheet of parchment paper on top. Pound it flat and roll it out with a rolling pin until about ¾ of an inch thick.
4. Cut the pastry into four sections and lay them on top of each other, rolling them flat again between two sheets of parchment paper into a ¼ inch thick disk.
5. Chill the pastry in the fridge and cut to the size of your pan when ready to make the tarte Tatin.

Fall spice mix:

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp cardamom

1 tsp ground star anise

½ tsp ground clove

½ tsp nutmeg

• Combine ingredients and reserve ½ tbsp for this recipe. This spice mix can be used in other fall recipes.

Tarte Tatin:

5 apples

5 tbsp salted butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ tbsp fall spice mix

Pastry dough or 1 sheet of store-bought puff pastry.

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cut apples straight along the core as shown, then thinly slice apples about 1/8^th of an inch thick.*
3. Smear a thick layer of butter on a 10-inch oven-safe pan.** Combine spices and brown sugar and sprinkle on top of butter until evenly coated.
4. Lay apples in tight circles starting with the outer edge as shown. After laying down the first layer, lay a second layer, rotating the direction of the apples by 90 degrees F.***
5. Cover the apples with the pastry dough and tuck the sides tightly around the apples. Then poke small holes to ensure there are no large air bubbles while baking.
6. Set the pan on the stovetop and cook at medium heat until the sugar and butter begin to melt and bubble. You can gently pry the pastry up to check that all the sugar has dissolved into a sticky caramel, and the apples have begun to soften. This should take 5 minutes.

   

7. Transfer the pan to a preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes.****
8. Once removed from the oven, invert the tart onto a serving dish. I have found the best way to do this is by placing a sheet of parchment paper on top of the pan and using the bottom of a baking sheet as the surface to transfer the tart onto. Holding both the pan and the baking sheet with towels, I quickly invert the pan and allow the tart to release. Then, I transfer the pastry onto a dish to serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Additional Notes:

*It is up to your personal preference if you would like to peel the apples for this recipe.

**A stainless-steel sauté pan works best because it is oven-safe and holds heat well. Non-stick pans work great, but they are rarely oven-safe. Cast-iron pans also work but can make inverting the pastry difficult due to their heaviness.

*** With thinly sliced apples, you don’t need to make the prettiest arrangement. It is up to you how complex you wish to make it.

****If your oven has the heating element at the bottom, you will have some trouble getting the pastry to bake golden brown even after 50 minutes in the oven. If that is the case, increase the heat to 400 for the last 10 minutes of baking, or turn on the broiler for 2-3 minutes.

This story was written by Joey Schamber. He can be reached at j[email protected].