Shallot and Goat Cheese Tarte Tatin

Little beats the perfection of a classic Tarte Tatin. Serve it warm with a generous scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and I'm sold. The culinary technique behind this staple dessert can be applied to many different types of fruit but also works wonders with savory flavours. As long as your filling has a sticky, caramelized consistency and that you top the tart with flaky puff pastry you can't really go wrong.

The only tricky part is to invert the dish once it's cooked. The beauty of a Tarte Tatin comes from the way it is cooked - with the puff pastry tightly nestled on top of the dish- the filling will bubble away while the dough can slowly crisp up without getting soggy. My best advice is not to over-think it when times comes time to invert the dish- simply run a pairing knife around the edges of the tart, top the tart with your platter (or a cutting board) and flip it over in one confident go. If a few sticky filling pieces stay lodged in your cooking vessel, gently free them and arrange on top of your dish.

Tarte Tatin and a Cookbook Giveaway

First things first ... tarte tatin! Have you ever had a slice of this delicious, upside down, caramel and apple tart? If not, I suggest you run through this post and give it a try as soon as you have a moment in the kitchen! This dessert is a real staple of my Parisian upbringing. Growing up, we had this tart for many different occasions, usually enjoying it warm with a melting scoop (or two!) of vanilla ice cream. This is really one of the staples of French cuisine and one of my favourites. It's a simple concept (apples, flaky dough, caramel) and the end result is not only gorgeous but incredibly delicious as well.


Invented by the Tatin sisters in France, this tart came about when the sisters were flooded with clients at their restaurant and came up with a clever way to recover their damaged traditional 'tarte aux pommes' (apple tart). The solution was to bake the tart up-side down, with the crust on top of the filling, and to flip the tart over once it was nicely caramelized by the butter and caramel used in the filling. This photograph doesn't really do the tart justice - but to tell you the truth, I made the tart in the evening and by the time it was out of the oven it was begging to be sliced... right then and there. An instagramed picture will have to do the trick for this post then!