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Tarte tartin

Servings:
Yields: 4 portions Servings
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Ingredients

  • 2 apples, gala or honeycrisp
  • 1 1/2 cup a.p.flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1" cubes
  • 1/2 cup -3/4 cup ice water
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoon water, or enough to wet all the sugar
  • 4 tablespoon butter, plus more for brushing the ramekins

Preparation

Baking Directions:

Making the pastry: Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.

Add the butter to the flour, and with your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour until they are the size of large peas.

Make a well in the center of the flour/butter mixture and pour in half a cup of ice water.

With a fork and stirring from the center, bring all the ingredients to form moist, but not sticky, dough.

You may need to add more water, a teaspoon at a time, to get the right consistency.

Once the dough comes together, get it onto a lightly floured board and press it into a flat rectangle.

Roll this dough into a long rectangle until it is 1/8-inch thick and then fold in half and roll out again to 1/8 of an inch; do this procedure three times.

The purpose of all this folding is to create layers in the pastry, to end up with something as flaky as puff pastry.

Wrap this block in plastic and chill it for about 30 minutes.

Once chilled and rested, roll the dough to 1/8-inch thick.

With a 4" round cutter, cut out 4 circles of dough.

Reserve in the fridge until ready to use.

Making the caramel: In a shallow pan, combine the sugar and water and gently mix the sugar until all the sugar crystals are moistened.

It should look like wet sand.

On a high heat, cook the sugar until it turns a light caramel color.

Meanwhile, quickly brush the insides of the ramekins with butter.

Now turn the heat to low, and while carefully swirling the pan, allow the caramel to get to a darker medium color.

Quickly pour this caramel into the ramekins to coat the bottoms with about 1/4-inch of caramel.

Set aside the ramekins and allow to cool and set.

Once the caramel is set, place a tablespoon of butter into each ramekin.

Preparing the apples: Peel the apples and and cut in half.

Using either a knife or a melon baller, remove the core, and then place each half into one of the ramekins Finish and bake: Top each apple with a pastry circle.

Bake the tarts in a pre-heated 375F oven until the pastry is golden brown and the caramel is bubbling at the sides, about 30 minutes.

Now remove from the oven and allow to sit out for 5 minutes before carefully draining a little of the caramel out of each ramekin into a small bowl.

Unmold the tarts onto your serving plates and glaze the tops with the excess caramel.

Serving this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a great option.