This is my first attempt at making these beautiful yet simple pastries. I have since made a few adjustments which I shall note as I go along in the recipe. These are incredibly simple to make but beautifully presented, and great for showing off your baking skills at any level to impress friends and family! I made these during the autumn when I had an abundance of apples on the garden tree, making this recipe incredibly cost effective. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 red eating apples
1/2 lemon juice
1 sheet of puff pastry (I used chilled to save defrosting)
Flour for dusting
3 tblsp apricot jam + 1tblsp water
Cinnamon (optional)
Icing sugar to dust
Method:
Well grease a muffin tin (you may need 2 depending on how many roses you make.) Wash and remove core from the two apples. Chop in half then slice into paper thin slices. Place the apple slices into a bowl of water and lemon juice to prevent browning.
Put the bowl into the microwave and heat for 2-3 minutes to soften the apple slices- this makes it easier to roll them. Leave to one side to cool.
In a saucepan add three tblsp of apricot jam and 1 of water. Gently heat until the mixture is sticky and runny. Leave to one side off the heat.
Next dust a surface with flour then roll out a sheet of puff pastry at room temperature, avoiding cracks, making sure to keep it as rectangular as possible. (Mine cracked as it was still cold in the middle)
Cut the pastry into strips of about 2in thick, this will make around 6 strips/roses.
Preheat the oven to 180c. Take the saucepan and spread the preserve onto the strips of pastry.
Drain the apples making sure to be gentle so as not to break the fragile slices.
Place the apple slices onto the pastry strips, overlapping as you go. I found the next stage was easier if I left a gap at the end of the strip instead of filling the whole edge with apple slices.
Fold the bottom edge of the pastry strip so that it half covers the apple slices.
Working from left to right roll the pastry from end to the other, you may need to spoon a little of the preserve at the end edge to act as a sticking agent to keep the rose in shape. This is where leaving out the last apple slice makes it easier to keep to the rose shape. Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of this stage as I needed both hands to form the rose.
Your apple roses should look something like this. Some will always come out better shaped than others.
Place the apple roses in the baking tin as you go, sprinkling a little cinnamon over the apple.
Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Half way through you may wish to cover the tin with tin foil to keep the roses red as mine were little coloured after being in the oven for the full time.
Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack. Don’t remove the roses from the tin until completely cool as the pastry is flaky and likely to crumble when hot.
Dust with some icing sugar to complete the apple rose.
The roses will keep for up to 48 hours kept in an air tight container. You can enjoy them cold or warmed up, perhaps adding a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of clotted cream! Yummy.