rice cooker apple tarte tatin

I don’t have an oven and it makes me sad. When I first moved into this place I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal to live oven-less but think of this: no fresh cupcakes with cream cheese icing, no fudgy brownies, no piping hot chocolate chip cookies. If I crave any of these things, I must buy them and <whine> it’s not the same </whine>.

Being ovenless means I have to make do with what I can get. When I came across this recipe I knew I had to try it. The prospect of a baked good in my home was too good to pass up.

All in all, I was happy. It’s not exactly a cupcake but it makes your house smell like cinnamon and it’s bready and fruity and probably good with whipped cream. That’s got to count for something right?

This dish is pretty easy and you’ll have most of the ingredients hanging out in your house anyway. I cut the original recipe by half and used:

• one Fuji apple
• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 tbsp of butter
• black sugar
• cinnamon
• pinch of salt

I started out by slicing the apples and caramelizing them in butter, black sugar, and cinnamon. When I do this again, I’ll add more sugar to this step so I can get more caramel going. You could easily use regular white sugar or brown sugar. I used the black sugar just because I have some on hand and I like the molasses flavor.

In a bowl I mixed up all the other bits – flour, sugar, baking powder, melted butter, egg, and salt.

Rice cooker pots are non-stick so no extra buttering or greasing up is required. I just poured the apples in and arranged them semi-nicely. Then I added in the cake mixture, taking a few minutes to spread the batter around evenly.

The pot goes in, you turn the rice cooker on, and ding a few minutes later it’s all done. I left it in there for 20-30 minutes after the cook button clicked just to be absolutely sure the thing was cooked.

Here’s the finished product turned out in a not-so gentle fashion.

Not bad right? It looks a bit dry here but it’s actually not dry at all. I was a bit disappointed at first taste but found it actually tasted better as it cooled down. For the next round, I’m gonna try it with cherries instead of apples, make the full amount of batter, and make sure I have some whipped cream on hand. I might also get a little more liberal on the butter.

A few slices of this were pretty nice on a lazy Sunday.  🙂