How to make a Tarte Tatin
Rustic, simple and easy to assemble. This recipe is a gluten-free version of the original classic.
As the last few days of autumn come to a close, and the weather becomes just that little bit more crisp and cool, our family has been harvesting the peak bulk of heirloom apple varieties from our farm.
There have been long-winded harvest days with family and friends, ‘picking mornings’ of intense labour, and apple stalls on our street corner (orchestrated with great vigour and savviness by our kids). While we now have enough apples to sink a ship (don’t go into our spare room, without threat of tripping over a box or two) we have had to work out very quickly what to do with all this extra produce.
I tried my hand at Tarte Tatin this week; the classic French dish that originated in a small hotel, just outside of Paris, in the late 1800s. What I love about Tarte Tatin, is the deliciously, simple nature of it; rustic cooking apples, unpeeled and loosely chopped, caramelised in butter and sugar, covered in traditional flaky pastry and slowly, gently baked in the oven. Admittedly, I made a few small tweaks to the recipe; the pastry is now gluten free (flaky yes, and made with old-fashioned chickpea flour). Yet, it’s still the same, rustic and crisply-textured tarte; easy to throw together, and requiring only a handful of ingredients.
Apples for Tarte Tatin
The original Tarte Tatin recipe was made with two regional apples varieties: Reine des Reinettes (Pippins) and Calville Blanc D’Hiver (known as the startling ‘white of winter’). These two varieties remain prized in France; both as heritage cooking apples (referred to as ‘les pommes oubliées’) and for their unique place in Tarte Tatin recipes.
Notably, alike many heritage apples, the Reine des Reinettes and Calville Blanc D’Hiver have a number of unique qualities; they have a soft, waxy skin, making them ideal as cooking apples (the skin softens easily with cooking, requiring them to not be peeled, but still hold their shape), and the wax provides a natural, protective coating.
Other heritage apples have similar qualities, and if you didn’t have either of the above varieties on hand, you could try some London Pippins, Bramley’s Seedlings, Sturmer Pippin or Bedfordshire Foundlings. And if all else fails, look for a good, locally grown Granny Smith, or something similarly firm and tart-tasting.
Recipe: Tarte Tatin
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