December 4, 2018

Apricot Tarte Tatin with Lemon Caramel

Name: Apricot Tarte Tatin with Lemon Caramel
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 1 cup (160 gr) Plain Flour; 1 tbsp Brown Sugar; 3 oz (80gr) Cold Butter; 1/4 cup (60ml) Cold Water; 1/4 teasp. Cinnamon Powder (Optional); 7 Small Apricots; 3,5 oz (100gr) Butter; 1/3 cup (60gr) Brown Sugar; 1/4 cup (60ml) Lemon Juice; 1/4 cup (60ml) Water

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I wish you could have smelled my kitchen while this Apricot Tarte Tatin with Lemon Caramel was baking… This Tarte Tatin is both sweet and tangy and topped with deliciously caramelised Apricots!

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What is a Tarte Tatin

This is not the first time I share the recipe of a Tarte Tatin, but in case you have missed it, let me take you through it again. The easiest way to describe a Classic French Tarte Tatin is to basically say that it is an Upside-Down Tart. Like an upside-down cake, it has two elements: a cake dough (here a Pate Sablee Pastry) and a topping, usually a fruit. And just like an upside-down cake, you can pretty much use any fruit you’d like to make a Tarte Tatin.

But this tart doesn’t have to be exclusively a sweet one, you can also make a savoury version of it with a non-sweetened tart pastry and fresh vegetables. To make a Tarte Tatin, you simply need to make a normal tart… but upside-down. Put the caramelised fruits at the bottom of a pan and cover it with the pastry. Once baked, simply flip the tart you’ve got a delicious Tarte Tatin!

Homemade Pâte Brisée

For this Apricot Tarte Tatin, I used my usual Pâte Brisée recipe. Pate what!? I guess I could have simply called it a Shortcrust Pastry, but the French Pâte Brisée is hard to exactly translate in English. If you enjoy French Pastry, you know that there are a few different types of Pastries used to make tarts: Pâte Sucrée, Pâte Brisée, Pâte Feuilletée and Pâte Sablée. Unfortunately, other than for the Pate Feuilletée (Puff Pastry), there are no exact translation for the rest of the pastries. They all tend to be called Shortcrust Pastry in English, although they are in fact slightly different.

So what makes a Pâte Brisée distinctive? As opposed to a Pâte Sucré or a Pâte Sablée that incorporate very soft butter into the dry ingredients, you need to use cold butter to make a Pâte Brisée. The key is to work the pastry quickly – and use cold ingredients only – so that the butter doesn’t start melting. Out of all the different French Pastries, the Pâte Brisée is the most basic one, and the easiest one too! You only need 4 basic ingredients:

Flour
Sugar
Butter
Water

Follow the golden ratio of 2 flour for 1 butter to succeed your Pâte Brisée every single time! Once all the ingredients have been mixed (see the recipe below for the steps), the pastry need to be chilled. If you bake it when the butter is still slightly warm, it will shrink in the oven. What I love about this recipe is that you can make it in the Food Processor, which makes it even easier to prepare! And it is the most versatile pastry ever! Check out other recipes I have made using a version of this pastry:

How to make a Lemon Caramel

Now that we have covered one of the two elements of this Apricot Tarte Tatin, let’s talk Caramel. The second element of this recipe is some Caramelised Fruits. In this case, some delicious Apricots cooked with a Lemon Caramel. There are many ways of making a Caramel, mostly in a pot and often with cream but in our case, the Caramel is made in a Pan. Nothing complicated here, just all the ingredients mixed in the pan and heated up to reach a caramel:

Butter
Brown Sugar
Lemon Juice
Water

The addition of the Lemon Juice is a great way to break the sweetness of a Caramel and create a more interesting flavour. I personally LOVE anything tangy and citrusy so it was a no-brainer to add lemon in this recipe. If you prefer something super sweet, you can also make a caramel without lemon. That being said, I highly recommend making this version of a Lemon Caramel as it is the element that really makes the dessert!

Putting the Tarte Tatin together

Alright; now you’ve got your pastry chilling in the fridge and your Apricots nicely caramelising in a pan. What’s next? Assembling the Apricot Tarte Tatin! For this recipe, I used a Springform Pan that I lined with Baking Paper to make it easier to flip the tart. You can also use a simple Tart Pan instead, but I highly recommend using one with a removable bottom plate. The caramel will continue to cook in the oven and could start sticking to the edge of the pan you use.

Place your caramelised Apricots on the bottom of your Pan, the sliced side facing up. Cover your fruits with the rest of your Lemon Caramel and set aside to cool down a bit. If your fruits are still very hot when you cover them with the pastry, it will start melting the butter. Lastly, roll your Pate Brisee into a circle; it does not have to be perfect. Place it over the Apricots and make a small hole in the centre of the pastry to allow the steam to come out while baking. And that’s it, your Apricot Tarte Tatin with Lemon Caramel is ready for the oven!

Feeling ‘Upside-Down’?
Here are a few other recipe ideas:

Red Wine Pear Tarte Tatin
Upside-Down Blackberry Cake
Persimmon Upside-Down Cake

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5 from 12 votes