to be clear i still think you can do a candy-coated chocolate dish at home like this. and without "circumventing the laws of thermodynamics." there are certainly references to dipping chocolates in sugar on the internet.
however, i've been pouring over his fruits book, from which the dill apple recipe posted earlier is found. nowhere in the recipe itself does it mention anything about the exterior clear glaze; it finishes it with a dip into a glaçage that has stuff like sweetened condensed milk and white chocolate in it; imo pretty clearly it's the second light green layer just under the surface.
with that said, i did find a potential clue in an illustration he'd left behind.
note that he explicitly points to a "glaçage kappa" (kappa frosting) in the drawing. this reference to kappa isn't found anywhere in the recipe or in the back of the book which covers directions for making the base coatings for some of these dishes. i haven't used kappa carrageenan much, but it's my understanding that it's one of the more brittle gel formers.
i went back and looked at the tatin video more closely and this time i noticed that his chocolate stem is pressed into the top. it's possible that this is a hard shell and there's been a hole poked into the top; we can't see the surface into which the chocolate stick is pressed. but chances are good that it just pokes through because this is a carrageenan glaze. probably sweetened and/or flavoured, and there's probably some addition of a calcium salt or maybe he just has really hard water.
