After trying apple rose recipe with buns instead of pastry, wished to try it atleast once with pastry base. When I was preparing, it appeard like I was using too much butter. When tasted it, oh my God !, its worth all the butter used. It is totally incomparable to the bakery stuffs. Using only butter it had a wonderful smell of butter. I decided to surprise my hubby but when he entered home, he sniffed and said it smells like stepping into a bakery. Since the photo was taken during night it is not so good, but the recipe is too good belive me.
It is not only appealing to eyes, it has a light and flaky crust topped with caramalized brown sugar and butter, over lies the beautiful apple rose, its totally a wow combo !. When you take a bite of all these together, your heart melts beforehand it does. It is perfect for preparing for a get together or as a special surprise for your guest. If you need details of how to make the apple rose please refer the post apple rose. If it is tough for you to make apple rose, never mind arrange the apple slices as you wish or at random. They taste great in anyway.
The pastry base can be modified to your wish. The only rule is use equal quantity of flour and butter. Flour can be little, underline little extra may be like 1 tablespoon. If you add more flour and less butter, you are sure to miss something good. The flour will be very soft and could be rolled easily and thinly. So if you have constraints on using too much butter, make less dough and top it with enough apples, peaches, raspberry etc as you wish.
INGREDIENTS
nutritional information: yields 6 slices
3/4 cup maida (organic preferably)
2 tbsp brown sugar (I've used karumbu sarkarai)
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 apple sliced thinly
4 + 1 tbsp butter
salt to taste
1 tbsp cold water
few drops of lemon juice
Method:
1. Let the butter sit in the refrigerator until use. It has to be hard. Grate the hard butter into the dough. Add little salt and mix them gently. Chunks of butter here and there is just fine. If you hold the mixture it should form a shape and feel wet. If not add little more butter. With just 1 tbsp of water knead them into a soft dough. Handle the dough as less as possible.
2. Cover the dough with a cling wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Core apples and slice thinly.
3. Heat a pan with a tbsp of sugar, lemon juice and apples slices. Cook for few minutes until they turn soft. Allow them to cool.
4. Roll out the dough. The thickness is as per preference. I rolled it out to double the thickness of a chapathi. Transfer it to the baking pan and spread brown sugar and 1 tbsp of butter leaving an inch of gap all around.
5. Form apple rose and place them carefully over the brown sugar-butter mixture. Keep cashews forming a circle around the apple rose and fold the dough keeping the cashews tucked in.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20- 25 minutes. Do not overbake. Keep an eye to prevent the apple rose from burning. After baking, when it has cooled down, brush the apple rose with honey to make it sweeter and glossier.
Heat in a microwave for few seconds before serving.
Notes:
Choose nice red apples, even green apples work out great.
If making for kids, you may use cashews generously and spread some all over the base too.
Use butter and sugar generously to get good results. Please do not skimp.
Thanks for reading the recipe, if you like this recipe please leave a comment below.
