The joy of tarte Tatin

When it comes to traditional recipes, there are few things we love more than an unlikely origin story, ideally one born out of clumsiness or forgetfulness. The bigger the kitchen pratfall, the more delicious the product. Setting pancakes on fire? Accidental crêpe Suzette! Nothing in the restaurant apart from lettuce and some pantry ingredients? The Caesar salad is born! Muck up a cake you’ve made hundreds of times and end up with a squidgy mess? The St Louis gooey butter cake is even more popular than the original recipe!

There are few bungling origin stories neater than that of the tarte Tatin

But there are few bungling origin stories neater than that of tarte Tatin, the upside-down caramelised apple tart. In the 1880s the Tatin sisters – Caroline and Stéphanie – ran the Hôtel Tatin in the Loire Valley. The story goes that while preparing a classic apple pie, Stéphanie got distracted and left the apples cooking in the butter and sugar. By the time she realised, the apples were irreparably caramelised, so in a moment of panic she threw some pastry on top of them, put the whole thing in the oven and then served the result to the unsuspecting guests – who loved it.

While there may be some truth (and an enormous amount of good luck) in the Tatin tale, it doesn’t quite tell the whole story. Larousse Gastronomique, the culinary encyclopaedia, is clear: upside-down tarts made with apples or pears are an ancient speciality of the central Loire region, and Antonin Carême, celebrity chef of his time, references ‘gâteaux renversés’ with glazed apples in his 1841 cookbook.