TARTE TATIN

An apple tart, cooked upside-down

The year is about 1898. Two sisters are rushing around welcoming clients and preparing a meal for a group of guests at their hotel in Sologne, France. In her haste, one of them realizes that she forgot to prepare a dessert. She spots some apples that have already been peeled, and with mad speed she throws them into a skillet with butter and sugar and tosses it into the oven.

She continues the service while the scent of butter and apples begins to fill the kitchen. She suddenly realizes that there is no crust! What was this dessert to be? Just gooey apples? In lack of a better plan, she covers the apples with pastry dough and puts the dish back in the oven. But when she takes it out again, the visual aspect is not particularly appealing. 

 

So she flips it over onto a plate to discover gooey apple caramel delight. To everyone’s surprise, the accidental tart is a big hit and soon becomes the specialty of the house. The Tatin sisters go down in history and are even cited in the first edition of the Guide Michelin in 1900.

Goes to show that sometimes mistakes can turn into delicious surprises.

The Hotel Tatin is still operating today

I’ve made many a tarte Tatin, but it is a recipe from the American Saveur magazine that has been the most moving. Crisp caramel aromas pierce the air around you when you bite into a slice, making your eyes tear up with joy. If you like deep dark caramel this is a tart for you.

recipe for tarte tatin from Saveur Magazine

I followed this recipe to a tee, except for the placement of the apples. I used fuji apples and rather than placing them on their sides, I placed them on their backs, still very tightly packed. I find the finished tart prettier when the rounded part of the apple is visible rather than the sliced edges.

You can go to the original recipe here.

For the pastry:
1 1/2 cups flour
6 tbsp. confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
10 tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten

For the apples:
8 granny smith apples
12 tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup sugar

1. For the pastry: Sift together flour, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Use a pastry cutter or two knives to work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in egg with a fork until dough just begins to hold together. Press dough into a rough ball, then transfer to a lightly floured surface. Knead dough a few times, gather into a ball, then flatten slightly to make a disk. Wrap disk in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. For the apples: Preheat oven to 375°. Peel, quarter, and core apples. Melt butter in a 10″ cast-iron skillet over medium heat, then remove from heat and sprinkle evenly with sugar. Tightly pack apples around inside edge of skillet, standing upright on their sides, nestled against one another. Arrange remaining apples in similar position in center of skillet. (Apples will shrink as they cook.) Return to high heat and cook until butter and sugar caramelize to a rich brown, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, then carefully turn apples over to uncooked side with a fork, taking care not to burn your fingers. Return to heat and cook 5–8 minutes longer. Remove from heat.

3. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12″ circle. Drape pastry over apples and skillet, then tuck overhanging dough between apples and inside wall of skillet. Bake in oven until pastry is golden, 20–30 minutes. Allow tart to cool for 15 minutes, then loosen edges with a knife. Place a platter on top of skillet and invert quickly and carefully. Serve warm.

BUTTERY NIPPLE MOUSSE

A long time ago in a place far away, the X-Files aired every Sunday evening. My friends gathered together each week to do dinner and watch the show.  We liked the show, but it was just the excuse to get together. I mostly remember BBQ, drinks, board games, darts, and lots of laughs.

One good memory was a favorite cocktail among the group, the Buttery Nipple, composed of Bailey’s Irish Cream, Butterscotch Schnapps, milk, and ice cubes.  You may know of the drink as a shooter, but we preferred it as a long drink with milk. We would sip these in the winter during the show. Just the smell of Bailey’s and butterscotch was enough to make me melt warmly into their old comfy couch and watch Mulder and Scully try to solve the unsolved mysteries of aliens and the like.

Years have gone by, the X-Files is no more, I rarely see those old friends, and I had almost forgotten the drink until I spotted a bottle of Baily’s Irish Cream on sale at the supermarket the other day. I knew right away what I would do with it. And so, Bailey’s is back, and with it, sweet memories of Sunday evenings in Atlanta long ago.

While putting together this recipe, I came across pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon’s lovely recipe for homemade butterscotch sauce on the site Simply Recipes.  It is quite easy to make and keeps for about a month in the fridge. I served this as a frozen mousse, but it will hold its form in the fridge as well. You might take it out of the freezer just a few minutes before serving.

A silicone muffin pan is perfect for making these. It makes unmolding them from the freezer very easy and very clean. If you have not got silicone cookware, use parchment paper to line the bottom and sides of the muffin tins so that when the time comes to serve them, it will be a piece of cake.

Recipe for buttery nipple frozen mousse:

• 2 egg yolks
• 65 ml sugar syrup (30° Baumé, which means bring 100 ml of water and 135 g sugar to a boil) any extra syrup can be stored in the fridge or freezer for a couple of weeks and used to sweeten drinks or make other desserts)
• 130 g white chocolate
• 260 ml whipping cream, very cold
• 3 tbs or more Bailey’s Irish Cream
  

…

A note on making sugar syrup: Use a very small saucepan and do not cover it. Once the water and sugar have come to a good boil, turn off the heat and allow to cool completely.

1 Prepare the “pâte à bombe.” Put the sugar syrup and egg yolks in a small bowl over a double boiler and heat while whisking with a whip until the mixture is as thick as a “crème anglaise.” It will be at about 83°C and when you dip a spoon in, then run your finger across the back of the spoon, your finger leaves a smooth trace.

2 When the egg-syrup mixture is thickened, pour it into a KitchenAid and beat at full speed, or mix with an electric mixer. Allow to turn at full speed until the mixture has lightened in color, taken a little volume, and cooled down a bit. This will take a few minutes. You now have a pâte à bombe.

3 Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. It needs to be nice and hot, around 45°C.

4 In a cold bowl whip the heavy whipping cream (or double cream) until soft peaks form, being careful not to over-whip. Add the Baily’s Irish cream and whip until just mixed. Taste to decide if you want to add a little more.

5 Assemble!  Using a whisk, add a little melted chocolate to the whipped cream and whisk well, but not more than you need to. Add the rest of the melted chocolate whisking well. Throw the whisk in the sink and pull out a spatula to carefully fold in the “pâte à bombe” or whipped egg syrup mixture until well mixed.

6 Spoon into silicone muffin pans, or parchment lined pans, and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight before unmolding.

7 When ready to serve, heat the butterscotch sauce just a little and top each mousse with a dripping spoonful. Add a little color to your plate with fresh edible flowers.

Recipe for homemade butterscotch sauce from pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
• ¾ cup heavy whipping cream (not ultra-pasteurized)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

I will copy the recipe here in case it ever disappears, but go to Simply Recipes for a perfect explanation accompanied by photos that show you exactly how it should look.

Butterscotch takes about a half an hour to make, from start to finish.

1 First, before you begin, make sure you have everything ready to go – the cream and the brown sugar next to the pan, measured and waiting. Making butterscotch is a fast process that cannot wait for hunting around for ingredients.

2 In a heavy bottomed stainless steel 2 quart saucepan, melt butter over low to medium heat. Just before butter is melted, add all dark brown sugar at once and stir with wooden spoon until sugar is uniformly wet.

3 Stir infrequently until mixture goes from looking grainy to molten lava. Make sure to get into the corners of your pot, and watch closely to notice how the mixture changes. It will take about 3 to 5 minutes.

4 Right before you add the cream, the caramelizing brown sugar will begin to look and feel more like liquid and less like thick wet sand.

5 At this point add all the cream at once and replace your spoon with a whisk. Lower heat a little and whisk cream into mixture. When liquid is uniform, turn heat back to medium and whisk every few minutes for a total of 10 minutes.

6 After liquid has been boiling on the stove for its 10 minutes, turn heat off and let rest for a minute or two before transferring into a heatproof storage vessel. (I prefer a stainless steel or glass bowl.) Cool to room temperature.

7 When butterscotch liquid is room temperature, take a small taste. It’s important to know what cooked brown sugar and butter tastes like, and what happens when transforming that flat sweetness into real butterscotch flavor. Whisk in half the salt and vanilla extract. Taste again. Add more salt and vanilla extract until the marvelous taste of real butterscotch is achieved.

Chill butterscotch sauce in a non-reactive container with a tightly fitting lid only after sauce has chilled completely. It will keep for one month refrigerated.

MARIELLE’S GRANDMA’S CREME CARAMEL & HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, EGGS

Simple and delicious, this traditional recipe is un délice absolu!

Crème caramel is a deliciously simple, classy, and light dessert of milk, eggs, and sugar.  My friend Marielle likes to cook but not to spend hours in the kitchen. She explained that this crème caramel is the best she’s had, and that she has never known of anyone to mess it up.  So I tried it. Verdict: fabulous! A recipe so simple highlights the few ingredients that compose it, so I recommend using the best you’ve got. For example, tasty local eggs from real free-range chickens.

Every other Wednesday or so, we stop at a farm a couple minutes from the Pézenas town center, and buy organic eggs.  Last time I went, the eggs had not yet been collected for the day, so the farmer invited us along to collect them.  Upon entering the chicken coop, curious chickens scurried over to greet us, and a couple obstinate hens tried to sit on their eggs. The farmer delicately lifted them to the side, collected the eggs, and placed them back on their perch.

After about 10 minutes we had collected them all and carried them back to the house where they were weighed and separated into catagories small, medium, and large. With the greatest care, as if they were white and black pearls, he divided the eggs into cartons, always 3 brown and 3 cream colored per carton. The difference in color comes from the type of chicken who lays it. The difference in size comes from the age of the hen. Young hens lay smaller eggs.

I love these eggs for a few reasons.  For one, it’s a pleasure to see the chickens who lay them in their happy little habitat overlooking hills of vineyards. But they are also great for purely practical reasons. The shells are thick, the yolks, a deep yellowish orange.  They are fresh. Because they are unwashed, their natural oily coating preserves them better than washed eggs. In brief, I’m a happy egg-eater.

Eggs like pearls in a carton

You can add a extract of vanilla or other flavor to your crème caramel. I added a hint of orange extract.  You can either make one large crème caramel using a soufflé dish, or many small ones using individual ramekins. It may seem odd that this recipe uses sugar cubes. There is an explanation. For some reason, sugar cubes are easier to caramelize than sugar, which sometimes crystalizes. But if you haven’t got them, sugar works just fine.

recipe for Marielle’s grandma’s crème caramel

1 liter of milk (reduced-fat works just fine) (that’s about 4 1/4 cups)

8 eggs

15 sugar cubes for the caramel (that’s about 15 teaspoons)

15 sugar cubes for the crème

…

Preheat oven to 150°C or 300°F.

Make a caramel in a heavy-bottomed saucepan by heating 15 sugar cubes with a few drops of water until melted and colored. Immediately pour into the bottom of your soufflé dish or ramekins. Set aside.

Bring the milk and other 15 sugar cubes to a boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Mix eggs in a large bowl and pour the milk over the eggs, whisking constantly. Add any extracts at this point.

Pour directly onto the caramel and bake for about an hour.

Allow to cool and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight before serving.

To serve, turn onto a plate or serving dish.

Pour the caramel into the base of a soufflé dish or ramekins, this is about the color you want to have

DECEMBER SWEETS: A PHOTO TOUR

Fondant-glazed Sugar Cookies

December is a busy month for a pastry chef… working odd hours, long hours, short hours (last night I worked from 10pm to 2am… and I pick up again tonight at 2am). I cook so much this month that I’ve started to feel like a real pâtissier and not just a silly imposter in a French kitchen. I can make a crème pâtissière in my sleep, a dough for a tart made from scratch takes about 5 minutes and I can have a lucsious jasmine-infused chocolate cream setting in the fridge in about 10 minutes. What a good feeling it is to start mastering something…I’m not tired of cooking, but I am a bit tired of eating sweets. At work, I only taste things that I have not yet tasted, and since we have many new cakes for the month of December, I have tasted my share. I’m thinking detox for January… perhaps a few apple tarts but nothing more!

The gray weather doesn’t make for very fantastic photos, but I try anyway. Here’s the December rundown. If you would like a recipe, feel free to contact me.

Bastien’s peaceful kitty and pacman cookies

I tested out Martha Stewarts “perfect sugar cookie” recipe and found the cookies a little dull in taste and texture, but the shapes held beautifully in the oven.

I made a fondant with a dose of fresh squeezed ginger juice which gave a delicate pique to the tongue. I’m liquidating the less natural ingredients in my cupoards, such as food coloring. Thus, the fondant is colored with food coloring, but in the future I hope to find natural colors to take the place of chemical ones. We spent a lovely Sunday afternoon cutting, cooking, and decorating.

Pâte de coing : quince membrillo

If you have never had a quince, you could be in for a nasty little trick. Bastien picked one from the farm where he “works” not knowing what it was, but seduced by its sweet aroma. We were both so excited to taste this new fruit that was scented like a honey nectar from some garden in a paradise somewhere. We sliced it open and each took a bite: yuck! We spit out the bitter cotton fruit, thoroughly disappointed and did a little research only to discover that the quince is no good raw, and to unlock its delicious flavors one must cook it with sugar!

Blonde caramel chocolates with fleur de sel

Take a bite…

I spent an afternoon after work trying to temper chocolate for the first time. Working with tiny quantities of chocolate is not easy, especially when you are trying to stabilize the temperature… but it worked out ok for a first try. My basic caramel recipe is coming along. One of these days I’ll get it perfect and post it. I just love salt with caramel, and it’s quite lovely with dark chocolate too.

Grand Marnier-spiked almond paste chocolates

Spiked almond paste in dark piment-spiced chocolate

My tempering wasn’t half bad for the second batch of chocolates, as you can see by their nice shiny gleam.

Foie gras on toasted pain d’épice triangles

We had this as an appetizer, but it could also have worked as a dessert or an amuse-bouche. The pain d’épice (honey ginger bread) was a nice compangon to foie gras. I topped with with a dab of homemade apricot jam and a dash of black pepper.

Jasmine-infused chocolate quenelles on a puddle of crème anglaise

Every other Sunday Bastien buys a few litres of raw Jersey cow milk from the organic market nearbye. Not only is it super rich and yummy to drink, but it is the best for dessert making. We have just learned that the milk changes quite a bit in the winter as the cows must eat hay rather than fresh grass from fields. It is richer in fat, but not as good in taste. Of course, it still beats any store-bought milk that I’ve tasted!

This dessert was so delicious and so quick to make (though you must let it set in the fridge for a few hours before serving). Jasmine and chocolate make for a surpisingly well-paired duo. My first crème anglaise (made at home and not at work) was just a bit too thick perhaps, but still soooo good.

Beet square salad

Beet salad doesn’t exactly make the catagory of “December Sweets” but they are sweet and I had to break the sugar fest with a little vegetable! We often have them raw, but here they were boiled, refrigerated, peeled, diced, and served cold in a very light vinaigrette.

Bon appétit!