TWD: Tarte Tatin

I'm ashamed to admit it but I haven't participated in Tuesdays with Dorie much the past month.  It's not that the recipes weren't to my liking, a combination of being on vacation a good chunk of the month plus being sick had to put the baking on hold.  I'm still sick but better than I was for a while!

We had two options for the recipe this week.  Because it is the 2nd anniversary for the group, our founder, Lauri of Slush, had a vote between members and Tarte Tatin and Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake were the top vote getters.  We could do both or just one.  I decided to do the tarte tatin because it seemed to be the simpler of the two.  While I'm sure the cake is delicious, I'm the only one eating it right now and cake is way more than I want to make.


Traditionally, the tarte tatin is made with apples but Dorie suggests pears as an acceptable substitute.  Being a big pear fan I jumped at the chance to use them.  She also has an option for the crust you can use.  Puff pastry was my crust of choice because I nearly always have some in the freezer for an easy dessert.


I only had one problem while making the tarte tatin.  Despite cooking the caramel for over 20 minutes, it never got to the right color.  I decided to just put it in the oven and see if it would still turn out (I admit, I was tired of watching it!).


Where I really veered away from the recipe was in the baking.  You are supposed to bake in the pan you made the caramel and cooked the pears.  Because I made a single serving of the tarte tatin, I moved the filling into a ramekin and then topped with the puff pastry.  

The puff pastry really puffed up.  It shrunk back down after it was removed from the oven however.  


I was worried that the tarte tatin wouldn't come out of the ramekin since it was a little thicker in height than the pan but it came out just fine.  A few slices of pears stuck to the bottom of the ramekin but that was easily fixed.  The flip was no problem because of the ramekin's size.  Just place a small plate over and out it came!  After a short cool down period, the tarte tatin was ready to taste.

Despite being very simple, the tarte tatin was really delicious.  The pears were perfectly tender and sweet from not only the caramel but their natural sweetness.  I was worried the caramel would be too sweet but it turned out to be just perfect.  After sitting in the caramel sauce while the tarte tatin cooled, the puff pastry soaked up some of the caramely goodness.  I had a little too much caramel sauce for my single serving.  I had to move the tarte tatin to another plate because it was practically swimming in caramel sauce.  Next time I would cut down on the amount I used.  It would probably be enough for two single servings.

To see more Tarte Tatin or Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake, check out the TWD blogroll.  To get the recipes, see Tarte Tatin, pages 312 and 313 and Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake, pages 256 and 257 in Baking.