Executive Pastry Chef Selina Progar shares a perfect autumnal recipe for apples that welcomes the evening or morning weather chill.

Ingredients

Apple Tarte Tatin
Yields - 1 small (6 inch) cast iron pan
Special tools- pastry brush, 6-inch pan or 6 inches cast iron skillet, rolling pin

6 apples, your choice
1 stick Butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

*This recipe is done over two days.
Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon. Set aside with a soup spoon.

Instructions

Prepare the cast iron skillet by lightly rubbing 1 Tbs of the butter on the bottom and sides, then laying a 9 inch parchment circle in the bottom. The parchment should be coming up the sides. Using 1 more tablespoon of butter brush the parchment, then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon brown sugar.

Preparing the apples: Peel the apples, and slice them with either a sharp knife or a mandolin to about the thickness of a quarter from the top to the bottom ( you want the seed star) of 2 apples. Remove the seeds from the stars and set those slices aside. Continue with the remaining 4 apples cutting them the same way. The pieces that do not have the core set those aside. The pieces with the core, cut just the core out (cutting them into half pieces).

Arranging the apples: Arrange the apples with the seed stars first. Place one star in the center, then shingle the remaining apples around the edge. Overlapping each other. Brush that layer with butter and sprinkle with 1 large spoon of sugar.
Then using the remaining rounds and halves of your apples do two layers of apples (use the half pieces to lift up the edges, as it tends to crown in the center), brush with butter, and sprinkle with sugar. Repeat until you have run out of apples or have reached the very top of the pan. Brush the top layer with butter and sprinkle with sugar.

Wrap the pan entirely in foil, and bake at 375 degrees for 3 hours in a nonconvection oven. 2 hours with convection. Add more time as needed until the apples are deep caramel brown.

Let cool, stovetop, for 1 hour, then place in your fridge overnight to set the butter.

Prepare the puff pastry, or thaw store bough puff pastry. Roll out slightly on a floured surface, and cut slightly larger than the size of the pan you used for the apples.
Bake using instructions on the recipe.

Once the puff is baked and cooled so you can touch it, place the baked puff pastry on top of the apples and place back in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and carefully flip over the pan onto your serving tray. Remove parchment paper.

Serve with ice cream.


Puff Pastry

Yields - 2 large pieces of puff pastry - this dough can be rolled out, rolled up in parchment, wrapped with plastic wrap, stored in a freezer bag, and frozen for up to 6 months.

Ingredients

DOUGH
1 cup bread Flour
4 oz pastry Flour
.5 oz salt
4 oz butter, soft
9 oz water, cold

ROLL-IN

1 cup 2 oz butter, Pliable but still cold
2 oz bread Flour

Directions

To prepare the dough, place the flour, salt, butter, and water in the mixer with the hook attachment and mix at low speed until a smooth dough has formed.

Shape the dough into a rectangle the size of a half sheet tray. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper and lightly dust with flour. Transfer the dough to that sheet tray, plastic wrap the tray (This will prevent skin from forming on the dough), and refrigerate for 1 hour to 3 hours

To prepare the Roll-in, Place the flour and butter in the mixer with the paddle attachment until smooth. Be sure there are no clumps in the butter but do not whip the butter.

Transfer to a sheet of parchment and form a rectangle 1 cm thick. And about the size of a quarter sheet tray. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm but still pliable. **Do not allow to become hard*** about 15 minutes.

Now we are going to lock in the butter to the dough.

Take the dough from the fridge and unwrap it. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and slightly roll out. Not much bigger than it already is. Using a bench knife or bowl scraper, keep the edges very straight and the corners squared off. As close as you can get to a rectangle. Now dust all the flour from the dough. If you leave excess flour, the dough will not stick to itself, leaving air pockets and uneven lamination.

Place the butter pad in the dough to the right side leaving 1-2 centimeters of space from each end. Fold the left half of the dough over the butter and pinch the dough together. Be sure to really seal the edges. Using the rolling pin, slightly roll it out longways. To connect the dough and butter.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let set it aside on your counter for 30 minutes. This is to bring the butter and dough to the same temp. Do not refrigerate this step.

Now we are going to administer a 4 fold. Roll the dough out in the long ways direction. Once it is rolled out to about 2 centimeters thick, rotate it 90 degrees, So the long seam is facing you. Fold the right side to the center but slightly greater than halfway, fold the other side to meet it in the ‘middle’ making sure all the lines line up perfectly, fold the entire thing in half again. Press the rolling pin down on the dough. And gently roll in the longways. Let chill for 30 minutes.

Repeat that 2 more times for a basic puff pastry. Repeat 5 total times to create a traditional millefeuille.

Rest dough overnight to allow the gluten to relax. Cut the dough into 4 equal parts. Wrap the other pieces. Either refrigerate and use in 3-4 days. Or freeze in chunks or roll out the sheets, separating them with parchment paper and wrapping well.

Take the 1/4 piece of dough and roll out to the thinness of 1- 2 centimeters.

Cut the size of puff pastry you want by cutting straight down, not to saw the dough as that will “smear the layers”.

Be sure to cut the puff pastry to a size that you can evenly weigh down.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, If you have a convection setting, set it to 325 degrees

Take a 9 inch round or 10 x 10 inch square of puff pastry and lay it on a parchment-lined sheet tray. Lay another sheet of parchment on top. Followed by another sheet tray. On top of that sheet, tray rest something heat resistant and heavy. Like a heavy Pyrex pan, cast iron skillet or ceramic pot. By weighing down the tray you are stopping the dough from puffing up. You can absolutely do this, but not for a tart tartan. This method can be used for a traditional Voulevant. Bake for 20, CAREFULLY check the color of the puff pastry, and reassemble the weights and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until it is golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool.

Flip the apple tart tatin over onto the puff pastry. Place back into the oven for 15 minutes to heat the apple through. Top with ice cream and serve.

Recipe by Selina Progar/ Styling by Kieth Recker / Photography by Dave Bryce