Apple Tarte Fine

Time for Tuesdays with Dorie! Today's selection is Tarte Fine picked for us to try by Leslie of Lethally Delicious, thank you Leslie. This was sure to be a favorite at our house, everyone, including picky husband, loves apples, and puff pastry is usually a pleaser...

I did not make my own puff pastry this time, and was kind of wishing I did -- Pepperidge Farm is fine but compared to homemade is kind of sad. Not quite as buttery, crispy, flaky, etc. but still tasty. I'm not trying to knock Pepperidge Farm or anything, it's just after making my own puff pastry and tasting how it's "supposed" to taste like, the store bought versions seem lacking.

The tart ended up being delicious topped with Michigan Golden Delicious apples and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar, mmm. Kind of like an open faced apple turnover -- a favorite of picky husband.

What a wonderful fall recipe pick! We've already been to the apple orchard once this year, and plan on making many more trips to stock up on apples and cider and whatever other goodies we can scout out. Happy fall and happy apple season to everyone :)

Parisian Apple Tartlets -- Tuesdays with Dorie

First off, get ready for picture overload, I just couldn't stop snapping photos of these tartlets! A huge thank you to Jessica at My Baking Heart who picked these simple and delicious treats for Tuesdays with Dorie, what a great choice!

This is a very simple recipe, puff pastry, apples, brown sugar, and butter, that's it! My challenge to myself was to finally make my own puff pastry. Honestly, I don't shy away from many recipes, but puff pastry has always seemed so 'out-of-reach' for my culinary capabilities. I don't know why, because really, it's not that hard!


After much rolling and folding, and a ton of butter (4 1/2 sticks!) -- we have puff pastry -- yay!


But, would it puff? Would I get a big schlopy mess of dough that resembled raw pie dough? I was so nervous!

Here is my test tartlet...



Before and after baking...


Ta-da! Look at that puff! It puffed, it puffed! Yay for puff pastry! No more Pepperidge Farm for me :)

Time to make a few more delicious dainty tartlets. I decided that the extra butter on top was not essential to a perfect apple tartlet...but after seeing how much butter went into that puff pastry I don't think skipping a few butter dices matters at all.


Before and after baking again...


I'm just so amazed that the puff pastry turned out! The apple and brown sugar were amazing and even my super picky husband who usually doesn't care to try TWD treats stole two of these as soon as they got out of the oven and loved them.


But really, how could anyone not want a bite of that buttery, flaky, apple-y, brown sugar goodness? Just look at those layers!

I can't wait to make some apple turnovers with my leftover puff pastry, and yes, I have quite a bit left, I'd sure hope so after 4 1/2 sticks of butter!! I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did with this recipe. I can't wait to see all of the tartlets posted for Tuesdays with Dorie, I'm sure there were a ton of creative takes on these, sometimes I like to shake things up a bit with TWD but my family really enjoyed these as written, simple Parisian Apple Tartlets :)

Mini Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling

This recipe was picked for Sweet Melissa Sundays by Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures, thanks Tracey! You can visit her site for the recipe. I know it's already Monday and I'm a day late, sorry! This past week has been a whirlwind, we had our first ER visit when my daughter accidentally broke her snow globe and cut her hand and needed stitches, and I also hosted a double birthday brunch at our house, talk about a wild week. When I joined Sweet Melissa Sundays I fully intended to bake every recipe (and post on time!) so I feel really bad that I missed last week's Brooklyn Brown-out Cake (which I WILL make) and was not going to let myself miss two weeks in a row even if I had to post late. I hope you guys can understand!

When I saw that Tracey had picked this recipe for us to try I was really excited, caramel apples, turnovers, and ricotta are some of my favorites. My husband is also a huge caramel apple and turnover fan, ricotta, not so much. So what I did was halve the ricotta mixture and instead of making big turnovers made little ones (9 little squares cut into one puff pastry sheet).

Three of the turnovers were caramel apple and ricotta and six were just caramel apple. For the apples I cut the quarters into tiny thin squares (I was going for apple pie consistency) instead of the 1/4 inch dices, and I also subbed brown sugar for white sugar. I was reaching in the pantry for the 1/4 cup of sugar called for and as I passed the brown sugar I decided that would be great for a little extra flavor depth.

Before and after baking...


I baked them at the suggested 375 on an insulated baking sheet for 20 minutes. I had set the timer for 25 minutes, but when I checked at 20 they were perfect. We absolutely loved these, the cinnamon sugar on the egg wash on top was a great touch. I was so happy to try this recipe and I'm sure we'll be making them again :)