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Tart Tatin

Tart tatin is one of the great classic desserts of French cooking. It's an apple tart cooked upside down. Apples are cooked in sugar until they caramelise. Then a circle of puff pastry is put on top, and the whole tart is baked at 356°F (180°C) for 20 minutes. To serve, the tart is turned over so that the apples are on top. Apples with caramel and crispy puff pastry taste amazing.

The classic recipe uses shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée), but in this version I prefer to use puff pastry (pâte feuilletée). It's a quite easy recipe, the only difficulty is the "turning over" of the hot tart, always a tricky moment.

417 K 5× 3.8/5 (53 reviews)

1 hour 20 min. difficulté

Easy

2.75 €

1 tart

4 Ingredients

Last modified on: October 30^th 2015

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For 1 tart, you will need:

1 1 kg apple
2 60 g butter
3 120 g caster sugar
4 1 puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)
Total weight: 1,410 grams

Change these quantities to make:

1 tart 2 tarts 3 tarts

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Times for this recipe

Preparation: 30 min.

Cooking: 50 min.

All in all: 1 hour 20 min.

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Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - 5 min.

You will need a pan or tin which can go both on the hob and in the oven, preferably non-stick.

Cut a circle of puff pastry the same diameter as your pan, prick all over and put back in fridge.

Stage 2 - 10 min.

Peel 1 kg apple, cut into 4 or 8 according to size, remove core.

Stage 3 - 10 min.

Melt 60 g butter in your pan over medium heat, add 120 g caster sugar.

It might seem to you that there is a lot of butter, but don't worry, it's normal: the apples will absorb most of it.

Stage 4 - 2 min.

Put apple quarters into melted butter, packed together as closely as possible.

Leave to cook until sugar caramelises.

Preheat oven to 356°F (180°C).

Stage 5 - 15 min.

After about 10 minutes, sugar will start to caramelise and apple juice boil.

Stage 6

The apples are sufficiently cooked when sugar around the edge of the pan is a light caramel colour.

Stage 7 - 5 min.

Put pan in the oven for 5 minutes.

Stage 8 - 3 min.

After these 5 minutes, remove and put puff pastry on top.

Stage 9 - 20 min.

Put back in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Stage 10

Remove from oven when puff pastry is golden brown.

Stage 11 - 5 min.

Now for the tricky bit: use oven gloves to protect your hands and put serving plate on top of Tatin tart.

You should do this operation whle hot, otherwise apples stick on the bottom of the pan during cooling.

Stage 12 - 1 min.

Turn over smartly...

Stage 13 - 1 min.

... then remove pan: your Tatin is a success!

Stage 14

At my opinion, nothing goes better with warm tart Tatin than a little whipped cream (crème chantilly).

Remarks

The recipe for Tart tatin comes from central France, via the pretty story of the Tatin sisters who ran a restaurant in Lamotte-Beuvron and invented the famous recipe, which now bears their name.

Keeping: Once cooked, a few minutes.

Source: Home made but after a recipe by Gaston Lenôtre.

Nutritional information

	Proteins (gr)	Carbohydrates (gr)	Fats (gr)	Energy value (in k-calories)	Energy value (in k-joules)
Whole recipe	110 RDI=40 %	1,090 RDI=100 %	840 RDI=130 %	2,430 RDI=120 %	10,150 RDI: 120 %
Per 100 g	8 RDI=3 %	80 RDI=7 %	60 RDI=9 %	170 RDI=9 %	720 RDI: 9 %

The % figures are calculated in relation to the Recommended Dietary Intake , or RDI of 2,000 k-calories (or 8,400 k-joules) per day for a woman Change to a man

Possible allergens in this recipe: milk, Gluten, Sulfites

How much will it cost?

For 1 tart : 2.75 €

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Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

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The 5 comments already posted on this recipe

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to get hard caramel on top of a tarte tatin, as the apples give off juice during cooking, which combined with the heat and the butter, liquefies the caramel that forms.
One of the only possibilities I can see would be to place a thin disc of caramel on top of the tart once it has been turned out, which would have been cooked separately and in advance.
A thin disc of caramel, or broken caramel for that matter, would be easier to make.

PS: Thank you very much for your support of the site
Posted by jh july 23^th 2025 at 07:11 n° 5
I think that some time I tried a home made tart tatin that had a tiny bit of hard dark caramel on top. Is that possible? I love the memory, but I tried making this recipe a few times already varying things like sugar temperature, when to add the apples, when to add the butter... and I am thinking that it can't be done and maybe I'm misremembering...
Or maybe you can suggest some way to accomplish that hard caramel?
Posted by hmijail july 22^th 2025 at 17:56 n° 4
Yes, but it's a caramel, the color is a very easy indicator that you can adjust to your taste too.If you want to use a thermometer anyway, a caramel start at 160°C (checkout cooking sugar).
Posted by jh may 2^nd 2025 at 06:28 n° 3
It would be useful to have the temperature of the sugar at stage 6. I guess that if we don't cook the sugar enough the tart will turn into a soup...
Posted by hmijail@gmail.com may 1^st 2025 at 14:17 n° 2
I've actually prepared this exact recipe before from the cookbook. Gee, mine did not look as "pretty" as yours:)
Posted by louise may 17^th 2009 at 19:04 n° 1

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