Tart Tatin

I have donned my kitchen apron and created a tart tatin this morning for my dear friends birthday and as I made it I remembered the story of how this dish was originally created by two sisters Stephanie and Caroline Tatin  in 1898. Apparently as they were so busy at there restaurant one day Caroline smelling the caramelisation of her apples in a pan threw over the pastry and pushed the tart in the oven in dispair.  On flipping it over after the pastry was cooked was amazed at how good it looked and so sent it out into the restaurant where it was relished by the customers and the dish became a classic.
Probably defined by a Monsieur Louis Vaudable who made it a permenant feature on his menu . His restaurant was in fact Maxim's of Paris! This goes to show how something simple and unexpectedly created can turn out to be  a real star.
 Funnily enough when I had the restaurant in France more than 20 years ago, I often made a stylised  crumble or a bread and butter pudding for the desert menu as a little fun more than anything. Now you often come across the same deserts in many top notch restaurants all over France. I sometimes wonder if they snaffled the idea from me. Ha ha the Champier Crumble has a certain  ring to it!!