Tarte Tatin

So, it's been a while. This is because I don't really have any proper (food) project I'm working on. Yes, I was going through the smoothie book, but I will confess that the prune concoction broke me. I was just like, why am I going to make this thing that I'm going to have 0% chance of liking? Especially when I am not that into smoothies? Especially when I don't even bother making the ones I do like? And when I do want them, I either ask Josh to make them or I get them from the delightful Jamba Juice?

Thus I decided I could stop forcing myself to do smoothies. Sadly (for this blog), I didn't immediately think of anything new to force myself to do that I wanted to do. So for the time being, I'm just going to periodically post things that are noteworthy for their hilarity/deliciousness/both. We'll see if I get up the gumption to embark on another cookbook anytime soon.

And speaking of periodically posting things that are noteworthy: Tarte Tatin. Tarte Tatin is noteworthy.

For my birthday (I think?) this year, Andy & Elizabeth gave me the awesome Cook's Illustrated cookbook. As Elizabeth is a good and knowledgeable cook, I figure it's got to be decent. Plus they tell you they're all about their test kitchen and why they do things the best way. Plus plus, it's enormous, which has to account for something.

Anyhow, for whatever reason I haven't tried much out of it as yet. Possibly due to the aforementioned enormity being overwhelming because it feels more like an encyclopedia you look in when you know specifically something you want to make versus something you blithely peruse looking for inspiration. But last week we had two film shoots at my house (for my short film that I wrote - fun) and as a result had about 13 extra tons of food leftover. Some of those tons included very perishable produce.

As I learned from the smoothie book, I can freeze strawberries and bananas and such for future smoothies that I will ask Josh to make. Thank you Weird Sisters. But the apples and clementines seemed more of a challenge. Although as I type this I'm pretty sure they can be frozen, too, it just seemed to me that that would be a terrible idea for some reason at the time.

Luckily, we were going over to our friends Daniel & Patty's for dinner/drinks/mayhem on Sat night, so I decided to enlist the surplus of Granny Smiths into the cause. Enter Cook's Illustrated. I perused the 'Apple' section in the index, and it turns out that not only was Tarte Tatin something both appealing and easy to make, but it also calls specifically for granny smiths. It further hits the Heather sweet spots of: apple-themed desserts and French things, which I'm especially excited about after last spring's trip to France.

Long story short, Tarte Tatin is pretty fantastically easy for the result you get. Basically, you mix up some dough, refrigerate it for a bit, then caramelize some apples, roll out the dough, throw said dough on top of the caramelized apple pan, and slide the whole thing into the oven for like 20 minutes. When it comes out, it looks like this:

Holy shit.

Which I think we can all agree is pretty goddamn impressive. Then you let it sit for a half hour to cool/solidify, and flip the pan over onto whatever you're going to serve it on. I basically arrived at Daniel & Patty's house cradling this thing in some weird tarte-induced stupor and immediately charged into the kitchen so Daniel could help me avec the flipping. We did. And then, dear reader, it looked like this:

Double holy shit.

Then you cut it and eat it and everyone swears at you about how good it is and you pretend to be humble but really are like, I FUCKING MADE SOMETHING DELICIOUS! YUS!

Cook's Illustrated Tarte Tatin

DOUGH
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confetioners' sugar
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 1/4" pieces and chilled (ie take a stick of butter out of the fridge and cut it into four pieces)
1 large egg, lightly beaten

APPLES
8 tbsp unsalted butter (ie another stick of butter)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 lbs Granny Smith apples (aka ~ 6 or so apples), peeled, cored, and quartered.

TOPPING
1 cup heavy cream, chilled
1/2 cup sour cream, chilled

1. FOR THE DOUGH: Process flour, sugar and salt together in food processor until combined, about 5 seconds. Realize you have put them in the mixing bowl and not food processor. Ask Josh to set up the food processor and relocate items.

Scatter butter over top and pulse until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, about 15 pulses. Be very delighted with instructions so specific they tell you how many pulses to do.

With machine running, add egg and continue to process until dough just comes together around processor blade, about 12 seconds. Nearly take entire top off and launch flour mixture all over kitchen, but at last minute remember there is the little carrot-feeder-in opening thingyboo at the top of the food processor, which is likely the outlet through which you should pour in said egg to prevent chaos.

2. Turn dough onto sheet of plastic wrap and flatten into 6" disk. Wrap tightly in plastic and shove into overfull refrigerator on top of the hummus and soda cans to refrigerate for 1 hr. Before rolling dough out, let sit on counter to soften slightly, about 10 minutes.

3. Roll dough into 14" circle on lightly floured counter, then transfer to parchment paper-lined baking sheet; cover with plastic and refrigerate until needed. Or just use immediately because you chose to take a nap and thus don't have enough time to belabor this whole thing. Plus, you are too busy making fun of the precise 14" measurement of your dough circle, which basically should just say, roll it out so it's a little bigger than the pan you'll be covering, dummy.

Meanwhile, figure out that you can adjust your Yankee Ingenuity Machine so that it doesn't slice the apples, but does peel them. Then lament that your lovely apple corer will also slice said apples into pieces smaller than quarters, so be deprived of this secondary helpful gadget use and have to quarter and core the apples by hand. Scandal.

4. FOR THE APPLES: Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position because Cook's Illustrated leaves no detail unturned, and heat oven to 425 degrees. Melt butter in 12" (of course) oven-safe non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, which means bringing Josh into the kitchen to debate the merits of your various skillets and pans, given that you recently got rid of nearly all your teflon-coated ones for fear of chemicals and death, and now was that a mistake? Settle on your 10.5" teflon-coated casserole skillet thing because you are bringing this to your friends' house and there is no room for error here, damn it.

Stir in sugar and cook until mixture is light golden, 2-4 minutes. IMO mixture is light golden immediately, what with butter being golden and all. CI wants you to know to make sure you get the apples in before the caramel, which it turns out is just regular sugar + butter, starts to brown. Yes, CI.

5. Off heat, place first apple quarter cut-side down (which is less defined given that you wound up "coring" them after you'd quartered them, which basically means they were quite flat about the middle, but anyway), with end touching skillet wall. Continue to arrange apples, lifting each quarter on its edge and placing next apple quarter on its edge, so that apples stand straight up on cut edge. Fill skillet middle with remaining quarters, halved if necessary (now you tell me). Give final extra pieces to dog, who refuses to eat the full piece for some reason, but is more than glad when you bite it into tiny chunks.

Cook apples over medium heat until they are lightly golden and caramel is darkly colored, about 6 minutes, turning apples over halfway (with the aid of a knife) through cooking. Be amazed you didn't burn the living shit out of yourself in this process because basically you are reaching into a tiny cauldron of bubbling boiling caramel, that would like nothing more than to glom onto your fingers and burn you like Viserys getting his golden crown (Game of Thrones reference, what?).

6. Off heat, slide chilled dough over apples in skillet. Or, you know, room temperature-ish dough, since it's been out of the fridge for about 10 minutes and you put it on the second after you roll it out. Drop some on floor in transportation process, which it turns out is kind of challenging given you are trying to get a 14" dough pie across the kitchen. Being careful not to burn your fingers (now? hah.), fold back edge of dough so that it fits snugly into skillet. Transfer skillet to oven and bake tart until crust is golden brown, about 20 minutes, rotating skillet halfway through baking.

7. Using potholder, remove skillet from oven -- as opposed to all those other times you just grab things out of the oven with your bare hands. Let tart cool in skillet for 30 minutes. Worry that doing so in the car might create too much vibration for tarte to set, but it turns out, that is not the case.

At friends' house, demand small knife from Daniel to run around edge to loosen, instruct Daniel to place inverted serving platter (or cutting board) over top and gently flip tart onto platter. Scrape out any apples that stick to the skillet and put them back into place on tart, which you don't have to do because you are amazing, as are Daniel's tart flipping skills.

8. FOR THE TOPPING: Using stand mixer fitted with whisk, ship cream and sour cream on medium-low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Note that CI says they put in the sour cream because the Fronch serve Tarte Tatin with creme fraiche. Wonder why you can't just buy creme fraiche? Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form, 1-3 minutes. Do this at home before you go over, worrying that it will somehow melt into liquid on the way, which it does not. Serve individual portions with dollop of topping. Impress all comers with your kitchen mastery and respect for using up perishables.