Cake #38 - Tarte Tatin

Sunday Classic Cake - Tarte Tatin.

Strictly speaking, Tarte Tatin may not be a cake but a tart. However, it is often called an upside-down cake. And in Wikipedia it is listed as a cake so let me stick to that and tell you about this memorable cake baking session when I nearly set my oven in fire.

I had bought some gorgeous cooking apples to be used for baking. Tarte Tatin had been on my 'should try this' -list for some time and a rainy and grey Sunday seemed like a perfect day for this autumny cake. The only thing that was missing was a proper pan suitable for both caramelising sugar and baking the cake. Clever as I am, I thought I would do well if I just caramelised the sugar on a frying pan and then poured it into the cake pan - which happened to be a springform pan. Yep, yep.

So I did caramelise the sugar on a frying pan and poured it into the cake pan. I placed the apple slices neatly in the pan, too, and put the pan into the hot oven. A few minutes later I saw black smoke coming out the oven as the caramelised sugar was leaking out of the springform pan and turning black on the bottom of the oven. No flames, though. 

After all drama, the cake turned out superyummy and there will be plenty of Tarte Tatins in the near future. Baked in a proper pan, though!

***

Later in the evening I was scraping the oven and got black ash all over myself and the kitchen. The Husband was at the same time flying to the UK to his business meeting. 

Avoid ash clouds at home - step onto an airplane!

Tarte Tatin

Pastry

400 ml plain flour

200 g butter

200 ml icing sugar

3 egg yolks

Filling

5 big apples, I used Bramley cooking apples

50 ml lemon juice

150 ml sugar

100 g butter

1. Preheat the oven to 250 C/ 500 F.

2. Mix flour, cold butter and icing sugar until crumbs. 

3. Add egg yolks and mix well.

4. Form a ball of the dough, wrap it in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

5. Peel and cut the apples into slices and squeeze the lemon juice over.

6. Caramelise 100 ml of the sugar on a hot pan.

7. Place the apple slices on top of the caramelised sugar, sprinkle the rest of the sugar and the butter on top. 

8. Bake in the oven until the apples have softened a bit, about 10 minutes.

9. Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll into a circle of the size of your pan. 

10. Place the pastry on top of the apples and put back into the oven.

11. Turn the heat down to 220 C /425 F and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

12. Let cool a few minutes.

13. Take a serving plate and carefully flip the cake pan and the plate so that the pan is on top, then lift off the pan. 

14. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.