Recipe of the month from Paul Tamburrini – Apple Tarte Tatin

Phyllis Stephen

June 2, 2019 2:02 pm

Apple Tarte Tatin

Serves 6

Ingredients

125g french butter
125g sugar
1kg apples best to peel and quarter 1-2 days in advance
Crème fraiche (to serve)
4x125g (discs) Good Quality Puff pastry (or if you fancy creating your own, please see recipe below)

For your apples, Paul suggests using Pink Lady apples to create a smooth, sweet pudding.

Preheat your oven to 220c
Dice the butter and sprinkle evenly over the base of a tatin pan, and cover with a 1cm deep layer of sugar
Carefully peel, quarter and core the apples. Stand the apple quarters on their sides in the sugar, leaving a small space between them
Place the cake pan on a very low heat, cover and simmer gently for about 35 minutes until the apples are translucent and bathed in a melted butter and sugar mixture.
Increase the heat under the pan and cook until the juices caramelise – it should be a lovely caramel brown colour. Please do not touch or taste at this time as can burn really badly.
Roll out the pastry into a thin round, large enough to cover the pan
Place it over the apples and trim any excess from around the edges
Bake in a 220C oven for about 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is golden
To make it look like a traditional tart tatin you need to turn it out, which is easy but watch the delicious caramel. Put on your oven gloves to protect your arms, place the serving dish on top of the pan, then carefully and confidentially turn it out. Then you leave the tatin to cool.
Paul Tamburrini recommends serving this dish with any caramel left over and some crème fraiche.

For the pastry

250g strong plain flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
250g French butter at room temperature
150ml cold water
Method
Sift 250g strong plain flour and 1 tsp fine sea salt into a large bowl. Roughly break 250g butter into small chunks, add them to the bowl and rub them in loosely. You need to see bits of butter.
Make a well in the bowl and pour in about two-thirds of 150ml cold water, mixing until you have firm rough dough adding extra water if needed.
Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20 mins in the fridge.
Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead gently and form into a smooth rectangle.
Roll the dough in one direction only, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50cm. Keep edges straight and even. Don’t overwork the butter streaks; you should have a marbled effect.
Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length.
Fold as before, cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 mins before rolling to use

Wine Suggestion by Peter Adshead, Manager at Paul Tamburrini at Macdonald Holyrood Hotel: “With the apple tarte tatin I would recommend matching the flavours rather than having anything that would contrast and with this dessert the wine definitely needs to be sweet.

“Bearing that in mind I would recommend a lovely Coteaux du Layon from the Loire valley where the two principal white grape varieties are Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc. Coteaux du Layon is usually made from botrytised Chenin Blanc and I love that sweet honeyed fruit with orange marmalade in the background but the Chenin really does have that apple flavour coming through on the palate.

“If you are a little more left field in your outlook then you might want to look at Ice Cider. Over the past few years there has been a slow explosion of great ice ciders stemming from Quebec but now made all over the world, the frozen apples are fermented and you are left with a lovely sweet intensified apple cider that with the tarte tatin would be fantastic. Being a great grower of apples there are now some great examples coming from the UK.”