Saturday, May 26, 2012

Easy Apple Tarts


Every single person that has tried these tarts are shocked at how good they are.  I have made these over and over again for different occasions and they are always a hit and always gone at the end.  No leftovers.  Ever.  :(  They are simple, delicious, pretty and EASY!  I have served them at room temp off a platter like finger food.  I have served them hot with a scoop of ice cream and homemade caramel on top.  I have made them and made them and made them and they are just always a hit!  So here you go, a sure crowd pleaser.  This recipe is adapted from Food Network.


INGREDIENTS

1 package frozen puff pastry dough
6 Granny Smith apples
1 jar apricot or peach preserves, heated
3-6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
juice of 1/2 a lemon
flour for rolling out dough

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.


Defrost your puff pastry according to the directions on the box.  Now, if you're looking to make puff pastry by hand, well, you're crazy.  My sister loves to cook and loves the process of making things from scratch and decided she wanted to make her own puff pastry once upon a time ago.  It was literally hours of work for a result that tasted exactly like the frozen kind.  Skip the head ache, just use the store bought kind!

While your puff pastry is defrosting get your apples ready.  I have a handy-dandy apple peeler/corer/slicer.  Seriously, I LOVE it, and so do my kids.  It hooks onto the edge of my counter, you stick an apple into it, turn the crank and 3 seconds later I have this...
...a perfect apple spring (now you get why the kids love it).  I cut the spring in half and I have perfect apple crescents.  Amy M has a similar device that suction cups to her counter that I think she got from Bed, Bath and Beyond, (mine is a Pampered Chef product).  It really is a kitchen MUST-HAVE.

Into your apple slices squeeze your lemon half (don't skip this step, it's really just to keep your apples from browning after they are cut), and add your cinnamon and sugar.  I have a shaker with a mixture of both and I just gave the apples a few healthy shakes and stirred it all up.  Set your apples aside.

So, once the dough is ready to use dust your work surface and dough with flour and roll it out thin.  I like to get a lot of bang for my buck so I tend to roll it really thin to get more tarts, but if you leave it thicker the pastry will puff more.

Now let's cut the dough.  You have some options here.  I just eyeballed it and cut it into squares.  My sister (the same one who made the puff pastry from scratch) would get out the ruler and mark it and cut it perfectly (too much effort for me).  You can also cut it with a biscuit cutter to get perfect circles.  Very pretty, but I hate to see that extra dough go to waste.

I like to move the cut dough onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper for the rest of the project.  It's less mess and goes quicker.  Trust me, when the sugar in the jam warms up and crystallizes on your pan, you'll be glad you don't have to scrub it off.  Grab your bottle of preserves and warm that sucker up.  Then you're just going to spoon about 1-2 teaspoons of warm preserves onto each square...

And spread it around with the spoon.

Next top with your apple slices.  Don't overlap them, it messes with the baking time.  Bake them at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  They can cool on the pan and be served at room temp or serve them warm.

Easy Apple Tarts


 DELISH!!!
<3, Sharla

1 comments:

Jewels said...

Made these tonight. SO good!!!! My kids...heck I couldn't leave them alone! Ate them with ice cream, and then ate one every time I walked through the kitchen. Thanks for sharing! :)