Apple Pastry

Making Tarte Tatin 

Len tried two new recipes for French apple pastries this month. First: Tarte Tatin.
Puff Pastry recipe from Bruno's Cookbook. Tarte recipe from the New York Times.

Dough and apples. A Tarte Tatin is made by cooking apples in a skillet to caramelize the sugar,
and then putting a round of dough on top and baking it.

Just our of the oven. After cooling the tarte for a little while, it's turned over onto a plate.

This upside-down tart is conventionally attributed to two sisters named Caroline and Stéphanie Tatin, who ran a hotel in in Lamotte-Beavren, a town in the Sologne region of the Loire valley in France. There are several versions of the creation of the tart. The sisters retired in 1906. Their creation thus had to be earlier than that: presumably in the late 19th century. Some years later, in the 1920s, the tart appeared on the menu at the famous Maxim's restaurant, and was also promoted by the food writer Curnonsky. 

"One should note, however, that most accounts of the dish's history point out, and other scholars agree, that upside-down fruit tarts were an ancient specialty of the Sologne region long before the 'Tarte Tatin' became famous. And the sisters never called their tart 'Tarte Tatin,' but 'Tarte solognote,' after that ancient specialty. It said to have been food writer Curnonsky, who named it Tatin, and Maxim’s who referred to it on its menu as 'La Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin ..." in hommage to the sisters." (source)

A post card of the hotel owned by the Tatin sisters.

Pompe aux Pommes, a traditional pastry from Auvergne

A "pompe" is a large apple turnover that was made for harvest celebrations in Auvergne, a region of France.
Like the Tarte Tatin, it starts with puff pastry and cooked apples. One layer of pastry underneath, one on top.

Len's Pompe aux Pommes was beautiful!

This is an even more buttery pastry than the Tarte Tatin: a very rich dish indeed !

Photos © 2024 mae e. sander