Try this, Jay. It's easy

Sugar butter apples (and flour)
Spread a cup of sugar in a nine inch cast iron frying pan, then cut one stick of unsalted butter in thin square slices and lay them over the sugar.

Peel and core the apples leaving them otherwise whole. Cut a slice off the bottom to make a flat base, then cut the whole fruit in half height-wise. Place the apple halves in the pan, with the flat side vertical and facing to the right. (I like the right, but you could use the left.) When you have peeld, cored and cut enough apples they will make a ring in yo pan, leaving a whole in the middle, which will take another one to two apples peeled, cored, etc. Make sure they are snug against one another.

Preheat the oven to 350. Put the pan on a burner and set the heat to medium low. The sugar and butter will begin to melt momentarily, and after some minutes the whole thing will begin to bubble. The higher the heat the more the bubble, so that's up to you.

Every few minutes, after the sugar and butter has liquified, use a baster to baste the apples. Turn the heat up so that the bubbles are a little faster, and after a while the liquid will become thicker and darker. When the apples have softened through, so that you can poke a paring knife through them with minimal resistance, they are done.

You should in the meantime, put one and a half cups of flour in a decent sized bowl, and using a paring knife, chip in a stick off unsalted butter, put your clean hands in the bowl and squish the flour and butter together until all the butter has been pinched into pieces smaller than you put in in the first place.

Get a half cup of cool water, add a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt, and dissolve them. Dump the whole thing in the flour sugar mix and stir it with a wooden spoon. (Wooden spoons are more fun.) Gather it into a ball, put it on a floured counter, flour your rolling pin or wine bottle, and roll it out.

When the rolled out crust is a little bigger than the nine inch frying pan, take the pan off the burner, lay the crust over the apples and fold back any extra to build up the edge. Put the thing in the preheated oven. When the crust turns golden brown, it is done. Take it out.

Get ready with your plate that is bigger than the pan. Put the pan on a heat proof surface, put the plate face down over it, put oven mitts on both your hands, grab the handle firmly with one, and press the plate firmly with the other, lifting both in front of you. Then, with one quick and fearless motion, flip the thing 180 degress, so that the top is now the bottom. The quicker the better. The pan should come off and leave a lovely patterned apple tart tatin.