My Grandma's tart Tatin recipe

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My Grandma’s tart Tatin recipe (Tarte Tatin)

Much ink has been spilt over the origin of the tart Tatin. It even seems the story was made up to make it famous at the beginning of the 20th century!

Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin were running a Hotel-restaurant in the Sologne region.

The hotel Tatin even had the honour of being mentioned in the first Guide Michelin edition in 1900!

The Tatin sisters made their tart famous, but not by forgetting to put the pastry on time over the apple as it is the legend, but by telling a story over their delicious dessert. A Parisian restaurant owner, Louis Vaudable, then stole their recipe but gave it the sisters’ name.

In any case, the Tarte Tatin became a famous dessert in France. I’m sharing with you my Grandma’s version of the Tarte Tatin. I hope you will like it.

Ingredients for the best Tarte Tatin

For a baking tin of 26 diameters.

For the dough:
100g butter
100g sugar
250g flour
One egg
One coffee spoon of salt

Garnish:
2kg apple
200g sugar
200g butter
1 sachet of vanilla sugar (1.5 coffee spoons)

My Grandma’s preparation

Prepare the sweet pastry by mixing all the ingredients.
Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add 100g sugar and salt. Chop the butter into cubes, then gently work it using your fingertips with the flour and sugar until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs and add the egg. Finish mixing.

Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out the pastry until it’s 4mm thick (yes, my grandma was very precise!).
Peel the apples and remove the seeds. Cut them in eighth.
In a metal tin of 4-5 cm in height, melt the butter on the stove.

When the butter foams, add about 130g of the sugar to the butter and stir gently. Place the apple eighths, the way you want it to look when finished. Dust the rest of the sugar and the vanilla sugar over the apples.

Let it cook gently until it starts caramelising.

Place the pastry over the apple and with the rolling pin. Cut the extra pastry over the edges. Prick it with a fork.

Bake the tart Tatin at Th. 7 or 8, until you see the pastry is just cooked, then cover the tart with foil and bake it for another 10 minutes.
Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes on a wet kitchen towel and finally put it on a hot stove for one minute to help remove it from the mould.