First of all, anything requiring a frozen puff pastry just sounds fancy and very proper. Add in some sliced apples, an egg wash, and generous amounts of butter+sugar in ramekins, and we might as well just call up the girls for a high tea in the yahhhd. It all sounded very prim, proper, and quick in my head. It should have been, but I got a little nervous dealing with dough, brushes, and making sure those doggone apple slices didn't go brown. (Of course they got a little brown. Thank goodness I squirted lemon juice on them.)
The Recipe
I found the recipe via Facebook. One of my friends posted it, and it grabbed my attention. A huge step from the Snicker's Pie of yesteryear, the idea of apple roses just sounded artsy and interesting. After researching the ingredients, I figured it was easy enough to try. Of course, I lost the recipe. So I ended up searching for another one. Once I found one that didn't require a lot of creation and craziness, I prepped my shopping list. (Link to recipe)
Baked Apple Roses
Ingredients
- 1 large red apple, cored and very thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons water
- 1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Butter 2 small ramekins (6 to 8 ounce) and dust with white sugar.
- Place apple slices on a plate, overlapping slightly if necessary. Microwave on High about 45 seconds just until slices have softened a bit. Cover plate with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.
- Mix together sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.
- Roll puff pastry sheet to less than 1/8-inch thickness. Using a pizza cutter, cut two 3-inch by 12-inch rectangles. Reserve remaining pieces for another use.
- Spread melted butter over dough; top with a generous amount of cinnamon-sugar. Place apple slices along 1 long edge of dough, about 1/4 inch beyond edge of dough, overlapping slices slightly. Fold bottom half of dough over the apple slices to form a long "folder" of dough with rounded edges of apple slices exposed.
- Beat egg and water together in a bowl. Paint surface of dough with egg wash. Sprinkle with more cinnamon-sugar, to taste.
- Starting from one end, roll dough not too tightly to form a rose-shaped pastry. Seal roll with end of dough strip.
- Transfer roses to prepared ramekins. Sprinkle with a little more cinnamon-sugar. Place ramekins directly on middle rack of preheated oven.
- Bake until well browned, about 45 minutes. Remove ramekins with tongs and place on baking sheet to cool 5 to 10 minutes. Remove apple roses from ramekins and finish cooling on rack. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.
The Prep
This recipe calls for slicing apples to complete and utter thinness. They weren't joking about this. THESE are your petals. They need to be delicate and as layered as possible. I had a few issues trying to get them as thin. Maybe my knife wasn't sharp enough. I did my best, and ended up with some pretty decent slices/petals. I have to admit that a few were a bit...slanted. But everybody ate them, so it only mattered to the perfectionist in my head.
The puff pastry sheet was a little bit more difficult. This was my first time working with frozen dough. I wasn't prepared, and I didn't read the part where you have to leave out the puff pastry sheet for 40 minutes @ room temp. That put me way behind with everything creation-wise. Since I had two, I sorta cheated with the second as the first thawed. I popped it in the microwave for 30 seconds, which loosened the dough and upped the thaw time. It also didn't create the splits in the dough panel. If you open most sheets too soon, you get splits in the folds.
The application of generous butter and sugar+cinnamon turned out to be a slippery, dusty, sticky time. I made sure that wherever it was called for, it was covered. I ended up with the cin/sugar mix all over the counter, my jeans, and part of my aunt's floor. (I swept it up!) I rolled my dough to the specifics of the recipe. This was the fun part. I was as exact as possible. Now, when the recipe says to fold over the dough, you're supposed to apply the egg wash before you roll it. I forgot this part. It really didn't do anything bad, but I noticed my pastries were a bit more puffy.
Since I wasn't about to spent six dang dollars per ramekin at Wal-Mart, I found some awesome oven-safe custard dishes from Anchor. Same aisle as the ramekin, half the price. Not sure if they still have them there, though. They work just as well, and only costed about 3 bucks per set. Each set had like...four dishes. Once I prepped my bowls, I grooved my egg-washed and dusted creations into each one with loving care.
Baking
It was fun watching the butter and sugar mix help caramelize my creations. They bubbled and blossomed before my eyes. I tried to balance cooking time with getting them as brown as I thought they needed to be. They did get a little crispy at the bottom, but they came out beautifully. 6 darling, gorgeous apple roses.
The results
I was VERY worried, because I let them bake for longer than instructed. They were brown and crispy, but DELICIOUS. Only one was a little closer to burnt, but the rest were like a mini apple pie. Sweet, warm, soft, and full of flavor. Everyone who ate one had nothing but good things to say about my creation. I had fun making these, and probably will try again, now that I know how to do everything. First time was a little wobbly, so the second time should be a breeze.Have you ever made something like this before? How did it come out?
Happy baking. :-)