Tart Tatin

Tart Tatin

(from Saveur Cooks: Authentic French)

Ingredients

For Apples:

2 sticks unsalted butter (20 tablespoons), cut into small pieces

1½ cups sugar

9 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and halved

For Pastry:

1 cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

Method

To prepare the apples: Preheat the oven to 400° F. Scatter butter pieces and sprinkle sugar evenly in a 9-10" copper tatin pan or a heavy baking pan. Tightly pack 14 apple halves around the inside edge of the pan, standing upright, nestled against one another, with round side titled down. Place 4 remaining halves in a similar position in the center of the pan. (Apples will shrink as they cook and will slip round side down into pan.) Bake for about 2 hours.

Transfer pan from oven to stove top and cook over medium-high heat until butter and sugar caramelize to a rich brown, 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and gently ease sticky apples away from the side of the pan with a knife. Refrigerate overnight so that the apples will firm up and "confit" further.

To prepare the pastry: Preheat the oven to 350° F about 1 hour before serving the tart. Sift flour, salt, and sugar into a bowl. Rub butter into the flour mixture with your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle in 3 tablespoons of ice water and work dough until it just holds together. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured surface into a 12" circle.

To bake the tart: Drape pastry over the apples and the pan. Roll the rolling pin across the top of the tatin pan to cut off excess pastry and allow the pastry to fall over the apples against the inside edge of the pan. Bake in the oven (still at 350° F) until the pastry is flaky and golden, about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven, place a flat ovenproof platter on the top of the tatin pan and invert quickly and carefully. Do not unmold yet. Reduce heat of the oven to 300° F and return platter and pan to the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the tarte tatin and serve warm.