We know the French think their food is the best. We know they think it because they are forever telling the world it is so. How they stay so thin eating cream, butter and cheese and drinking wine all the time none of the rest of us know, although I suspect the secret is strong black coffee, Gauloise and plenty of gesticulation and philosophical argument whilst not actually eating the beautiful pastry set on the plate before them. In the spirit of cross cultural understanding, I have decided, this week, to try making my own puff pastry. After all, how difficult can it be?
It turns out to be quite difficult indeed. Hours of rolling, folding and refrigerating. Perhaps this is the work out that burns off the calories of the 50% butter pastry. Is this the real secret of how the French stay thin? The effort which goes into their food makes you appreciate even a small mouthful of it? Message us on Facebook if you want details on how to make puff – I’m no expert so will point you in the direction of someone who is. Or just buy some good quality butter puff pastry in order to make this Tarte Tatin. But maybe run to the shops to work off the calories instead.
Tarte Tatin
Ingredients
6 medium desert apples e.g. Cox’s
Juice 1/2 lemon
120g butter
200g caster sugar
250g puff pastry
Flour for rolling
Method
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees centigrade. Peel, core and halve the apples. Squeeze over the lemon juice and toss quickly and put them in the fridge whilst you prepare the rest.
Use a pan approximately 10 inches in diameter which can go on the stove top and in the oven. Evenly cover the bottom of the pan in the butter, then sprinkle the sugar over the top. Add the half apples, round side down. Roll out the pastry so it is slightly large than your pan, so that when you lay the pastry over the top of the apples, it comes and in or so up the side of the pan. You want to trim this rim so it is fairly even all round – once the tarte is cooked and inverted this becomes a crunchy, caramel soaked rim of loveliness. Put a couple of slits in the pastry at the centre of the pan to release the air.
Now, this is the magic bit – on the stove top you turn the butter, sugar and some of the apple juice into caramel. I used a medium heat – the recipe I worked from said a “fierce heat” but I think you could easily burn the apples. I put it on the stove top for about 15 minutes. The pastry puffed up with the expanding air and I kept sniffing the steam coming through the slits to make sure I couldn’t smell burning. Once the pan was up to a good heat I lowered the temperature a little too to keep the apples frying and caramelising without burning. I think you’d have to be careful not to use a thin pan too, but instead one with a heavy base so that the heat disperses fairly evenly to the apples.
After this, it is a case of baking in the oven for 20 minutes (keeping an eye still on the pastry, and then turning out onto a serving platter straight away whilst the caramel is still hot and soft. The buttery pastry soaks up all the caramel apple juice. It was slightly nerve-racking to make because of the unseen caramel making, but other than that, with shop bought puff pastry, would be relatively simple. And, it turns out, absolutely delicious. Vive la France!
Photo Credits:
Geronimo serving platter by BlissHome
Indus mango wood bowl by Nkuku