Quince Tart with Four Ingredients

Normally quinces are harvested in October, however, for some strange reason all the local stores here in Germany offer them in abundance in January and February. I did ask last October whether any were available, but I was informed that I would have to wait a little. For that reason I decided to publish one more winter recipe before we finally jump to fresh and vibrant spring recipes. If anyone knows why stores offer this fruit just now, please let me know. Regardless, I decided to make a traditional tarte tatin. This means that a) this is an upside down cake, so the dough is on the top when it is baked. And it also means that b) the fruit gets to soak up all of that lovely caramel. I hope you understand now why I wanted to make a quince tarte this way.

I just love tarte tatin, I already published the classic tarte tatin with apples, and I do have another recipe on the blog with apricots and rosemary. Today’s version only requires four ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, and quinces. You can pratically make this tart with any stone fruit, I can imagine that pears or plums will be equally good. You only need to be sure the fruit doesn’t get too mushy (e.g. this may be the case with pears). Quinces on the other hand, need to be softened first. Thus, you will first boil them in some water for a few minutes before you proceed as you would with any other fruit. As I prefer mine to be rather firm, I only boiled mine in water for about seven minutes even though I had pretty large quinces.

Tarte tatins are produced the same way always. First you prepare your fruit, then you melt sugar to create caramel, you place the fruit inside and cover it with dough. I usually go for pie dough, but you may wish to use puff pastry. Once prepared, you place in the oven to bake the dough until golden and then you turn it upside down: Voilá! I personally love this tart as it has a high content of fruit. I love the fact that the dough just holds it all together, but the main player is actually the fruit. As the fruit has bathed in caramel, what is not to like?

Print Recipe

Tarte Tatin with Quince

Prep Time: 30min – Cooking Time: 25min – Total Time: 1hr

This quince tart is prepared the traditional way: melt caramel, place quinces inside, cover with dough and bake.

Ingredients

• Pastry Dough
• 200 grams of all-purpose flour
• 100 grams of cold butter
• 30 grams of reegular sugar
• 1-4 tablespoons of water
• 
  
• Filling
• 1kg of quinces
• 125 grams of regular sugar
• 50 grams of butter at room temperature

Instructions

1

You can see how I make the tart in this video. For the pastry dough mix flour and sugar in a large bowl. Place butter in cubes on top and work into crumbs the size of peas. Add water by the tablespoon until you can work it into a ball. Chill covered for at least half an hour or overnight.

2

For the filling wash and rub clean the quinces, quarter and take out the cernel. Place into a pot and cover with water, let boil for about 5-15min or until quinces are tender but not yet mushy. Discard the water and slice each piece again lengthwise. Set aside.

3

Place the sugar in an oven-proof skillet and melt at medium-high temperature. Once melted, add soft butter, wait again until melted, reduce heat to low, and place the quinces in a nice pattern into the skillet. You can see on the pictures how I arranged mine. I made an outer circle and had four slices in the middle. Let simmer for about four minutes.

4

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Take out the pastry dough and roll out into a circle larger than your skillet. Place on top of the quinces, trim off sides and use any leftover dough to fill any holes.

5

Bake for about 25min or until golden. Loosen edges with a knife and turn skillet upside down. Be sure to use a large plate or cutting board for turning over. Serve immediately warm or cold with some whipped cream, ice cream or enjoy plain.

P.S: If you are into tarte tatin with other fruits, how about:

Tarte tatin with apricots and rosemary

Classic tarte tatin with apples