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Tarte Tatin

I have loads of apples so I decided to try the tarte tatin, something I have made once before a few years ago. It gives a different spin on apples than does the traditional apple pie: baked upside down with a carmel topping. The technique used to make it is breathtaking if not a little dangerous. I present here my third effort this fall. The results are still not perfect but getting things even to this point requried some experimentation.

Here are the apples. I peeled two before I remembered that not only did I not need to but that the peels added both flavor and color. The apples need to be firm and not give out too much water when heated---the apples on my first batch were a little too wet. Coating them with sugar and letting them sit also helps draw out some water.

Room temperature butter is spread over the bottom of the pan, then coated with a thick layer of sugar. The sugar will form the carmelized top. Layers of apples are spread over the pan. The bottom layer will end up at the top so it should be the neatest.

The apples are cooked for several minutes on the stovetop before the crust is installed. The traditional way to install the crust is to roll it, place it at the edge of the pan, then roll it out. You can use a fork or knife to tuck the edge of the crust around the pan.

The pan is cooked on the stovetop again to carmelize the sugar and butter.

The tart is removed from the pan by inverting it over a platter. This is always a dramatic and somewhat nervewracking operation.

My third try gave enough caramel to give a nice taste. But I think that the layer of apples was too uneven to support a uniform layer of caramel on top. Still, it is a lot of fun to make. The taste is very rich, not hard to imaine given the full stick of butter on the apples, between the caramel and the butter poured directly on them. The lack of cinnamon helps to show off the rich flavor of the apples.

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