MY VERY FIRST APPLE TARTE TATIN!

If any of you keep up with this blog, you'll know that my all time favorite dessert is apple tarte tatin. (i talked about the one at the petit robert that i had a while back and didn't like). so, as i said in my previous post, i took the day off to go apple pickin' with my friends leah and arti. i just don't feel like it's fall without apple picking. so even though it was rainy, cold and overcast, off we went to harvard, ma to go apple picking.

the place we went (i forget the name at this point) was a little different from the apple picking places i normally go to. i think they're more geared to making apple cider for wholesale. i'm sure i picked up a bottle of it from whole foods or some supermarket. so they didn't have the usual pumpkin patch (though there were pumpkins), or cool farm store (i sorely missed the cider donuts), candied apples or the petting zoo and real bathrooms and many places that are geared more to the general apple picking public. however, what they did had was a lot of apples, and a huge variety of them, more than i'm used to picking. and by wandering towards the back of the orchard, we were able to find trees loaded with apples.

here's a pic of the trees loaded with apples. we ended up pick several varieties. like macoun (my favorites), mcintosh, cortlands, empire and golden delicious (which were huge. man apples as leah would like to call them).

and here's a pic of our bag with the apples.

now. if you've ever been apple picking, you know that after you pick your apples, you gotta cook them! so we hauled the apples back to my house to make apple pie and apple tarte tatin. (i've had this planned for a while). for my tarte tatin, i used the recipe in my cook's illustrated cook book. it was pretty straight forward and easy. plus, i bought the puff pastry pre made, cause really, you can't make that stuff at home. even when i worked in a kitchen we always used premade puff. otherwise, it's just too time consuming and will turn out like crap.

ok, so here's me peeling the apples. which i then cored and cut in half.

next. you melt one stick of butter in a skillet. (make sure you pick a skillet that can go in the oven. luckily, my sister left this cool cast iron one when she moved out)

take the butter off the heat and sprinkle in the sugar evenly. (3/4 cup plus one tablespoon)
then arrange your cut apples. (didn't i do a nice arranging job? i think so too)

then the pan goes back on high heat for 10-12 minutes, so the sugar and butter will caramelize. you're look for a deep brown color. the first time i made my failed tarte tatin, i didn't caramelize the sugar enough. so, it didn't have the pretty caramel color that it should have).

ok, after it caramelizes, again remove from heat. now here's the step that i'd only seen in cook's illustrated, but it worked out well. you gotta pierce the apples with a fork and flip them over. so the apples will cook on both sides. be careful when you're doing this, cause you don't wanna burn yourself with the caramel sauce. then it's back on the high heat for another 5 minutes.

in the meantime, i've thawed my puff overnight in the fridge, so it's all ready to go. after i remove my pan from the burner, i spread the puff over the skilled and tuck in the edges. and into the over it goes for 15 minutes while the puff browns.

ok, here it is after it's out from the oven. the puff is quite puffy at this point, but it'll shrink down.

you gotta let the thing rest for a few minutes. i let it go for 30, before you can flip it over. when flipping, first loosen the edges of the tarte from the skillet. then put a large plate on top and flip! i was lucky that none of my apples stuck. and look at that huge puddle of pretty caramel sauce in the middle!

i served it with caramel ice cream and everyone enjoyed it. i just love puff pastry. and was thrilled to make my first successful tarte tatin. now i have an extra sheet of puff left. i'm not sure if i'll make another tarte tatin or some apple turnovers. but now that i've had a successful apple tarte tatin making experience, i'll be sure to do it again at some point, and perhaps even experiment with some other fruits...