Things are rosy on the Internet these days, at least if you're perusing baking sites. Pinterest has a whole page devoted to apple roses, and a scroll through Facebook regularly unearths someone's video for rolling apple slices in a strip of puff pastry.
It's easy to see why the technique is popular: The glimpse of peel along the top of each "petal" creates the illusion of a red rose. But certain recipes are wanting. Sometimes it's the method, saying no more than: Wrap the strips into apple roses. In some tarts, the apples remain disconcertingly raw or steamed. Other pies, while gorgeous, look challenging to slice and still retain their beauty.
The apple rose technique generally is credited to famed French pastry chef Alain Passard, who came up with his Bouquet of Roses tart several years ago. (A YouTube video explains his thinking.)
All of this got us to thinking about how to highlight this technique in a personal dessert — because we love individual tarts — with a little extra pizazz. What we came up melds a sort of cheese Danish with apple roses.
Sure, it requires a little more effort than sliding sliced apples into a pie crust. But making the posies isn't as tricky at it looks, and the impact-to-effort ratio is hugely tilted toward oohs and ahhs.
We used frozen puff pastry, but if you have a favorite homemade recipe, go for it.
One key to success is giving the apple roses a filling firm enough in which to anchor them, but delicate enough to bake in the brief time that the pastry requires. The cream cheese of a good Danish pastry sounded right, its flavor bolstered with some apple jelly.
An egg wash tinged with cinnamon ensures that the pastry emerges from the oven with a glossy finish, but with flavor to boot.
As to the apples, choose the reddest-skinned fruits you can find. We've used SweeTango, Pink Lady and Cortland with success. Larger apples give you longer slices to work with.
