Did you maybe leave something out Tarte Tatin, sorta

zxcvbob

had six ginger gold apples that I wanted to cook. Added 3-4 cup sugar and cooked it until it was bubbling and medium-dark brown. Stirred with a wooden spoon. . . brown sugar to make the caramel? I've never had the clbuttic tarte tatin, so I don't know what to expect. Thanks. half-bushel bag of apples) and I'm looking for interesting ways to cook some of 'em (the apples, not the dogs) the recipe. I even used real butter. I melted the butter and added the sugar and cooked it over medium low heat until the sugar melted. I stirred with a wooden spatula and thought it was odd that the sugar would not take up the melted butter.

Bob:

It doesn't make a solution; it can't. The butter melts and gets up to 275¡ or 300¡ and the sugar browns. It's a caramel and butterfat combination, but they don't form a solution. They remain separate. You tried for a result that isn't what happens. And, I suspect, you had the temperature set too high.

No.

and kept cooking and finally it did start absorbing the oil and even bubbled started bubbling, but not until the butter was smoking hot.

Way too hot. Lower temperature, stir a lot...

caramel was medium-dark brown, and I removed it from the heat while I quickly quartered and cored the apples and then cut the quarters into 2 or 3 slices.

Quarters or eights are the usual.

though it was on a cold burner. Maybe the sugar breaking down was being catalyzed by the iron?

No. It was doing what sugar and butter so handled will do irrespective of pot. The caramel should be stirred so it doesn't burn and taste bitter.

You want to do that fan thing - lay the apples in on top of the caramel - because it maintains a layer of caramel between the apples and the pan. Stirring lifts the caramel and lets the apples stick to the bared metal.

Scorched sugar.

You're not trying to dissolve the sugar, you're just cooking it in a fat matrix with which it will never combine. You're making caramel, not a syrup. It will become a caramel syrup when the apples surrender their juices and thin it.

Actually, no. Sugar, even in the presence of the small amount of water in the butter, will boil. And sugar alone will boil when melted in a hot pan once it reaches a caramelization point. Water dissociates from the sugar molecules at that point. It should be cooked on medium heat with almost constant stirring. The sugar will caramelize and darken. The butter is merely a medium to cook the sugar and remains separate. The butter will end up throughout the tarte and do what butter in any apple pie does.

No. The caramel should bubble and darken before adding the apples. It sounds like you were looking for results not intended by the recipe.

You should have the apples done in advance, just as a matter of a full mise en place. That way, the caramel and apples don't have to wait for you.

My suggestion is to do the recipe as written one time. Then do whatever variations you want once you know how it should be. Maybe google a bit to see how others do it.

Sorry for what looks like unclear recipe writing on my part.

Pastorio