Besides pumpkin pie, I think an apple dessert is also essential for a Thanksgiving feast. Usually, I make a traditional apple pie with as many apples as possible. (I try to fit about 20 large apples in one pie, no joke. Because the more apples the better and I love the challenge of squeezing them into the crust.) This year I will be doing the same for turkey day.
But a couple weeks ago, I made this delicious tart with the abundance of apples that I currently have in my fridge and the puff pastry that I needed to use. It’s an excellent super-easy alternative to apple pie, if you’re not up to the challenge of filling a pie crust with 20 apples.
Here’s what you’ll need:
3 apples
1 sheet of puff pastry
1 cup of brown sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons of honey
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch of salt
First, thaw the frozen sheet of puff pastry. Once it’s thawed, carefully unfold it onto a sheet pan. I didn’t handle my pastry gently enough so it tore at one of the folds. Oops.
Luckily, I’m used to improvising in the kitchen. I simply divided my puff pastry sheet into three separate pieces and made three small tarts instead of one big tart. Slick, right? If I hadn’t told you, you would have never known that I messed up. Go me.
Anyway, if you have gentle hands, leave the pastry sheet as one piece. If not, you can just make smaller tarts like me.
Once your puff pastry is on the sheet pan, you might want to pop it back in the freezer to keep it cold until the apples are ready.
You might also want to pre-heat your oven to 415 degrees.
The best part about this recipe is that you don’t have to peel the apples. Peeling is never a fun task and I avoid it whenever possible. In this case, just core the apples and slice them as thinly as possibly.
In a large bowl, mix the apples with the brown sugar, honey, cinnamon and salt. Toss everything together until the apples are evenly coated.
Hmmmmmmm honey.
Your mixture should look like this:
Then arrange the apples in a straight line on top of the puff pastry, with the slices overlapping.
It’s ready for the oven! Bake it for about 20 minutes. The juices from the apples will seep out of the tart, so make sure you use a rimmed baking sheet. Remove the pastry from the pan as soon as it’s out of the oven, before it cools and sticks.
And that’s it! Told you it was easy.
I highly recommend serving this with vanilla ice cream because vanilla ice cream and apple desserts go together like peanut butter and jelly. They complete each other. Plus I believe that ice cream is a necessary component for every dessert. So make mine a la mode, please.
Beautiful tart!!