Recipe: From tree to table — Tarte Tatin made with juicy, sweet, self-picked Vaudois Gala apples
Whether you choose to handpick your apples straight off the branch or from the grocer’s shelf, harvest time is the moment to indulge in your favorite apple recipes. For me, that’s a deep and delicious tarte tatin made with local Vaudois Gala apples. Typically, Galas are recommended for eating not cooking because they’re ultra-sweet and juicy. But given that I enjoy the hot caramelised apple syrup as much as the fruit and because Galas hold their shape nicely when cooked, they suit me just fine. I also use brown sugar instead of the usually recommended white (some recipes call for plain white sugar and others for caster) and I add a dash of cinnamon. While some chefs use a heavy-based, oven-proof pan both to cook their apples on the stove and then bake them in the oven (which must be very handy) I first cook the apples in a big Le Creuset enamel pot and then carefully transfer them to a tin-lined, copper tarte tatin mould (diameter 24 cm, height 5cm) that I picked up in London some years back. It’s a deep mould so I can …