Apple Tarte Tatin

Ingredients

• 6 firm apples, peeled, cored and halved
• 180 g caster sugar
• 80 g butter, cubed
• 1 sheet of all-butter puff pastry
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• crème fraîche, to serve

Method

1. Use firm apples

   Peel, halve and core the apples and toss them in lemon juice. Use a firm eating apple, not a cooking apple — bramleys collapse into sauce and there is nothing to turn out.

2. Make a dry caramel

   Melt the sugar in an ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat without stirring, swirling the pan, until it turns deep amber. Then take it off the heat and beat in the butter and vanilla — it will hiss and seize, and it comes back together.

   10 min

3. Pack the apples in tight

   Arrange the apple halves cut-side up, packed hard against each other in a spiral. They shrink by a third as they cook, and any gaps now become holes in the finished tart. Cook on the hob for 15 minutes to start them softening.

   15 min

4. Lid it with pastry

   Lay the pastry over, trim to a circle slightly larger than the pan, and tuck the edge down inside the rim like putting the apples to bed. Cut a couple of steam vents.

5. Bake

   Bake at 200°C until the pastry is deep gold and crisp and you can see caramel bubbling up the sides.

   30 min

6. Rest, then turn out

   Rest for exactly 5 minutes — no longer, or the caramel sets and welds it to the pan — then put a plate over and invert it in one confident movement. Serve warm with crème fraîche.

   5 min