Quick & Apple Tart Recipe – How to Make Apple Puff Pastry

If you want to make a very quick, very easy dessert that also happens to yield impressive results, look no farther than the freezer section of your grocery store, where you can find frozen sheets of ready-made puffed pastry. Puffed pastry is a magical substance—it looks like nothing in the package, but bakes into a puffy, golden, textural substance that make the perfect crust for fruit tarts, chocolate pastries, hors d’oeuvres…the list goes on. The other night before we left for New York City, I whipped up an apple tart. My mom happened to be visiting that night and hadn’t seen me make it, and when she took a bite, her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She loved it!

To make the apple tart (or tarts), you need frozen puffed pastry. It’s sold next to the pies and pastries in the freezer section of your supermarket, and usually comes two sheets to a package. The sheets are tri-folded, so they look like rectangles.

Allow the rectangles to thaw on the counter for about twenty minutes, then carefully unfold them. This is one sheet of puffed pastry.

Then, to make the tarts, we can take two different approaches here. One, you can cut the sheet into three thinner rectangles, which means you’d just cut along the existing scores. This will result in three smaller tarts, with less “puff” around the sides.

OR…

You can cut the sheet in half, which will result in more puff around the edges. Either way is fine.

Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray, then place the puffed pastry rectangles on the pan. Don’t let it get too soft and mushy; place it in the freezer for a couple of minutes if it needs it.

Next, core 3 to 4 apples.

Cut each apple in half…

Then slice the apples as thinly as you can.

When they’re sliced, throw them into a bowl…

And squeeze lemon juice all over the apples. I squeezed half a lemon over these.

Next, add about a cup of brown sugar. Yes, I said a cup. I know it seems excessive, but…well, you know me.

Finally, sprinkle in about 1/4 teaspoon salt. This just balances all the sugar we just threw in and negates pretty much all of its calories.

No. Not really.

Gently stir together the apples.

Let them sit for a few minutes so they’ll get nice and juicy. And try a slice—delicious!

When you’re ready, simply lay the apple slices in a straight line on top of the puffed pastry, overlapping them as you go. As you can see, this is the thinner rectangle of pastry, and the apples just about fill up the space.

This is the wider piece. See the extra space around the edges?

Now you’re ready to bake them! Bake at 415 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes, keeping an eye on things toward the end. You really do need to bake the tarts long enough for the pastry to sufficiently puff, and sometimes it doesn’t finish puffing until the very end.

NOTE: Because of the juice and sugar in the apples, you should expect there to be some dripping and oozing (gross word!) of liquid. Don’t be alarmed! Just remove the tarts from the pan as soon as you pull them from the oven and you’ll be fine.

Oh…look how pretty!

Gawgeous. Simply gawgeous. And it looks like I spent a lot more time on it than I did. It seriously took five minutes (minus the thawing and baking time) to throw together.

You can serve it plain, as is, OR you can drizzle a tablespoon or so of caramel topping all over the top. Perfection. You can also just serve it with sweetened whipped cream. Yummy.

I like sprinkling it with sifted powdered sugar.

Then I just cut a couple of thin slices…

And serve it with vanilla (or cinnamon) ice cream.

(I like using a smaller ice cream scoop. Makes it seem a little more special.

Next time you want to impress guests with all the skills you learned at the International Pastry Academy (not!), whip out some puffed pastry and make an apple tart.

It’ll become one of your go-to desserts in no time flat.

Enjoy!