Chocolate & Chillies: The Ultimate Tarte Tatin

Today I'm remaking Canadian Living's recipe for The Ultimate Tarte Tatin. We all love desserts with apples. Recently we enjoyed Canadian Living's Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie which was a huge hit so I knew this Tarte Tatin would be loved by all as well. This dessert is very different from apple pie as it is made in a cast iron skillet. I've never made a dessert in a cast iron skillet so I was excited to give this method a try.

This recipe involves cooking the apples in a cast iron skillet with butter, sugar and half a vanilla bean. The dough is prepared earlier and chilled in the fridge It is rolled out and carefully laid on top of the cooked apples. The skillet is put in the oven to bake and then inverted onto a plate.

This dish took a bit of time since you must cook the apples on the stove for about 30 minutes. Also the dough and cooked apples need to chill in the fridge. In the end, all the work was worth it because the results were fantastic! The vanilla bean adds amazing flavour so don't skip it. This dessert was loved by all. My boys were the initial taste tasters and were so happy to have a dessert with their lunch. I was just wishing I had some vanilla ice cream to scoop on top. The most challenging part for me was inverting the Tarte Tatin onto a pie plate as the skillet is very hot. My dough also didn't roll out very well but I'm not the most skilled at making pie dough. In the end I was able to patch things up. Since the dough is on the bottom, you could not see my mistakes and it had no impact on the flavour.

You can find the recipe for The Ultimate Tarte Tatin here.