The Accidental Upside-Down Apple Tart.

Tarte Tatin is one of France’s most famous desserts with an accidental creation, or so the story goes. Read about the tarte tatin history and how it gained international popularity.

Tarte Tatin History & Origins

In the 1880s, sisters Caroline and Stephanie Tatin ran a hotel in the Sologne region in the Loire Valley. Hotel Tatin was opened by their parents in the small town of Lamotte-Beuvron in central France. Caroline was the hostess and managed the books while Stephanie cooked the meals for the guests.

Stephanie, who went by the nickname Fanny, made a special apple tart that was crusty and caramelized as the Sologne region was known for its fruit tarts.

One day, Stephanie hurriedly put the mixture of peeled apples, butter, and sugar into a cast-iron mold and placed it in the oven. It was when the apples were already cooked and caramelized that she realized that she had forgotten to put the pastry on the bottom of the tart.

As to not waste the ingredients, and because the caramelized apples already looked too delicious, she placed the pastry on top and set the tart back in the oven. When the pastry was browned, she took it out of the oven and flipped it upside down. A masterpiece was born.

It should be noted that an undated recipe book claimed that the recipe was invented by the cook of the Count of Chateauville who gave the recipe to Fanny Tatin.

Top gourmands from around the country who knew of the quaint hotel were delighted by the hotel’s new dessert. France’s “Prince of Gastronomy”, Curnosky tasted it and named it “Tarte Tatin” after Fanny Tatin and Hotel Tatin.

Adding to the Tarte Tatin obsession was the owner of Maxim’s, Paris’s premier restaurant, who went to great lengths to get the recipe. It has been told that he planted a cook/spy who worked at Hotel Tatin as the gardener in order to learn the recipe. Once it was created in Maxim’s, Tarte Tatin immediately gained international popularity.

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