What I’m reading: I haven’t started it yet, but I received Tart on pre-order this week, and I am dying to get stuck into it (below)
What I’m listening to: Sophie Turner on Dish with Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett
What I’m eating: a very good lunch at Berenjak (below)
Look, I know I posted a tart recipe last week, but this peach tatin is totally different to its honey counterpart. It’s also a good week to celebrate tart because the highly anticipated Tart memoir came out this week (see above). Peach tatin is currently on the menu at the Fat Badger because I think it’s the perfect showcase for the best in season (currently stone fruit and especially peaches). It’s also really quick to make, and the peaches can be substituted for other stone fruits if you like.
I resisted tatin for a long time at the Fat Badger because we don’t currently have the facilities to make puff pastry, and I didn’t want to use a shop-bought one. Lamination kind of used to be my thing, and my pride wouldn’t let me make a tart tatin with a puff pastry that I hadn’t made myself. Anyway, I’m over that now because we’ve found a really good all-butter French puff pastry that we’re using, and I think it’s turning out pretty spectacularly. We serve it by the slice with fig leaf ice-cream, but I also served a whole one to my dad and his friends last week with fig leaf crème anglaise, which I think was even more chic.
The trick with this tart is not to take the caramel too dark initially. The temptation is to take it to that really dark smoky point that would be perfect for, say, an ice-cream base - because you’re diluting the burnt sugar with so much milk and cream that you need the caramel to be punchy so that the flavour carries through. This caramel, however is going to sit right next to the delicate peaches, and actually gets another 25 minutes in the oven once the pastry has gone on top - so you really don’t want to overdo it in the first stage of caramelisation. You’re looking for a caramel that’s maybe deep amber/light chestnut - no darker. I’ve had to ask some of the chefs to leave their macho notions at the door, and not take this caramel as far as they possibly can - but proceed with caution and err on the side of lighter rather than darker.
recipe: peach tatin
Ingredients
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