Caramel Apple Tart

Serves 8
Recipe By: Tyler Florence

Pie Crust
3 cup flour
1 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cup (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter -- cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 egg -- well beaten
1 tablespoons vinegar
4 tablespoons ice cold water

Tart Tatin
1/2 pie dough recipe -- puff pastry or store-bought pie dough (make
sure it has real butter!)
6 medium-large Golden Delicious apples (about three pounds)
1 stick butter (can reduce to 1/2 stick)
1 cup sugar

Makes barely enough for three single-crust 9-inch pies or too much for
two. Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Add butter and cut into flour. You
may use a pastry blender, two knives or your hands. Smoosh the butter with
the flour and continue till the biggest pieces are pea-sized and the
smallest pieces resemble bread crumbs. Combine egg and vinegar in a small
bowl and add it to the flour mixture. Add water 1 Tbsp at a time, just
until the crust just begins to come together. Smoosh the dough together so
it forms a solid mass. You should still see large striations of butter.
Divide dough in half and press each half into a round flat disk, and wrap
tightly in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, preferably for
several hours and for up to two days before rolling. This step lets the
dough relax so it doesn't get tough. The dough can also be wrapped
airtight and frozen for up to 6 months; thaw completely before rolling.

If you refrigerated the dough for more than a couple hours, let it
warm up on the counter for about 15 minutes so it's pliable. You want
the dough to be cold, so the butter doesn't melt. But if it's too
cold, it will be stiff and crack when you roll it.

Roll the dough on a flat floured surface (a wax-paper lined counter
works well). Lean into a floured rolling pin and roll from the center
out, stopping just short of the edge. Keep rotating the dough 90
degrees to ensure that it's not sticking and to shape it into an even
circle. If the dough cracks or tears, push it back together. If the
shape is uneven, cut off the portruding piece and patch it on the
short side with cold water. If the dough becomes too soft and starts
sticking, slide it on top of a rimless cookie sheet and refrigerate
it until it firms up. It is not unusual for all these things to
happen. The crust should be about 1/8-inch thick.

If you plan on making a custard pie (ie pumpkin, lemon meringue or
pecan), prick the crust with a fork and blind bake (cover the shaped
crust with foil and weigh it down with dried beans, rice or metal pie
weights) at 425F for 12 minutes. Then remove the foil, brush with egg
wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for a few minutes more, until the
crust is golden brown. I have never had a soggy pie crust with these
directions. When you bake the filling, cover the edges of crust with
foil (you'll need several pieces plus tape). If making a double-
crusted pie or tarte tatin, there's no need to blind bake. But do
brush with egg wash and sprinkle the crust with sugar to keep it crispy.

If you have extra pie dough, make empanadas by filling small disks
with chocolate chips, mashed bananas, Nutella or nuts. Fold each disk
over and seal. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at
425F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Tarte Tatin

adapted from The Joy of Cooking

You will need any ovenproof, deep, heavy skillet measuring 7-8 inches
across the bottom and 10-11 inches across the top. Cast iron works
well because of its heat retaining properties, but you made find it
too heavy when unmolding the tart. I've heard you can use a pan with
a plastic handle if you cover the handle with several layers of
aluminum foil. I'm not sure if a Teflon-coated pan can withstand the
heat though, especially in light of recent lawsuits.


1/2 recipe pie dough, puff pastry or store-bought pie dough (make
sure it has real butter!)
6 medium-large Golden Delicious apples (about three pounds)
1 stick butter (can reduce to 1/2 stick)
1 cup sugar

Prepare the pie dough. Roll into a 12-inch round, slip a rimless
cookie sheet beneath it, and refrigerate. If using puff pastry, dock
the dough with a fork so it doesn't rise to be one-inch thick in the
oven.

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to
375F.

Peel, core, and quarter lengthwise the apples. Melt butter in the
skillet chosen for the tarte. Remove from the heat and sprinkle sugar
evenly over the bottom.

Arrange a ring of apple quarters against the sides of the pan,
standing the apples on the thin edge of their cut side so as to fit
as many as possible. Fill in the center of the skillet with the
remaining apple quarters. You may have a piece or two of apples
leftover.

Place the skillet over the highest possible heat and cook, stirring,
until the juices turn from butterscotch to deep amber, 10 to 12
minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, spear the apples with a
fork or the point of a paring knife, and flip them onto their
uncooked sides. Return the skillet from the heat and slide the
prepared crust onto the aples. Being careful not to burn your
fingers, gently tuck the edges of the dough against the inner sides
of the skillet. If the crust tears, patch it up with a paste created
with flour and water. Brush the crust with egg wash (a beaten egg and
a Tbsp of water) and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake the tart until the crust is richly browned, 25 to 35 minutes.
Let cool on a rack for 20 minutes, then loosen the sides with a knife
and invert the tart onto a serving plate that can withstand the heat.
Return any apples that stick to the skillet to their proper place on
top of the tart. If you let the tarte cool too long, the caramel will
harden and the apples will not come loose. In that case, just heat
the pan on the stove to remelt the caramel.

Serve immediately or let stand at room temperature for up to 8 hours.
When ready to serve, warm the tart to tepid in an oven heated at the
lowest setting.

Notes:

If you love caramel apples, you will love this dessert. My only gripe
is that I like the texture of deep-dish apple pies, but I love the
flavor of the buttery apples here. Tarte tatin is dainty; it only
stands one inch tall. Anyone have suggestions on how to caramelize
apples in a traditional pie without cooking them to death? Tyler
Florence's Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie looks promising.

If the apples don't come out on the first flip, don't force them out
with a spatula. Otherwise, you'll end up with broken pieces like this:

Recipe Notes


If America could be symbolized as one object, it would be an apple
pie, a classmate once said. Round, wholesome and homey, an apple pie
evokes images colonial cooking. Just imagine crisp apples freshly
picked off of trees and combined with a buttery, hand-formed crust.

Never mind that apple pies actually came from Europe and the phrase
"As American as apple pie" was a marketing campaign created by New
York apple growers.

Besides, if I were to describe America as a food, I'd say we're hot
dogs. We're a nice big mixture of everything encased into a
harmonious package. And oh yeah, hot dogs are eaten at our national
past time, baseball games.

What about the phrase "easy as pie," then? Pie crust is prone to
innumerous problems: the dough often tears, the butter melts to
create a sticky mess, and then the dough gets tough after too much
flour is added to compensate. When you're all done shaping the blob,
the bottom gets soggy in the oven, while the edges burn. There's also
the age-old question: do you pre-bake the crust or not? There goes
food myth #2.

The easiest yet most impressive looking "pie" to make is actually the
French tarte tatin. Legend has it that in 1989, the Tatin sisters
accidentally left apples stewing on the stove and rescued the dish by
putting pastry on top and flipping it over.

I love tarte tatin because it doesn't matter if you have a misshapen
crust. It will all be covered by a concentric circle of caramelized
apples. Don't be fooled by the short ingredient list; neither spices,
thickeners nor lemon juice are needed. Fresh out of the oven, the
caramel is gooey, the apples chewy and the crust crispy. The recipe
below makes one of the best apple pies I've ever had in my life.

It's important to choose apples that keep their shape after cooking.
Generally, sweeter apples like Galas don't hold up, while tart apples
like Granny Smiths have great texture. The best compromise is a
Golden Delicious or Jonagold (a cross between the tart Jonathan and
sweet Golden Delicious). I'm the type of person who buys whatever
apples are on sale, but the apple type really matters here. Do not
use Macintoshes or Jonamacs (a cross between Jonathans and Macouns):
you'll get apple sauce before you get caramel. More info about apple
varieties is at the New York Apple Association's site.

The crust that I use has two unusual ingredients: egg and vinegar.
Egg makes it rich, while vinegar makes it flake on contact. The
vinegar also makes the crust shrink after baking, but it's only a
slight shortcoming. After trying this all-butter recipe, you may
never go back to a vegetable shortening crust again. Cooks often use
shortening because it's less likely to melt under the heat of your
hands, but I think it brings nothing to the flavor or texture.
Shortening crusts are artificially puffy and remind me of stale
cookies. True, shortening also makes the dough smooth, but who cares
what the crust looks like when you're making tarte tatin? If you
didn't know already, shortening is chemically altered vegetable oil
that's solid at room temperature. It's also high in bad cholesterol-
raising trans fats. Another reason to stay away.


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