Puff Pastry Apple Roses

In today’s post: These delicious baked apple roses look so fancy but are easy to put together using premade puff pastry. They bake up golden and flakey with amazing apple cinnamon flavor.

Easy Fall Dessert Idea

Every year when fall begins to roll around I try to come up with a couple new ways to bake with apples – I’ve made caramel apple cupcakes, swedish apple pie, apple pie bites, and caramel apple butter just to name a few. This year’s idea is one I’ve seen online a couple different places (such as All Recipes and Natasha’s Kitchen): baked apple roses. You layer thin slices of spiced apple in a strip of puff pastry, then roll it up and bake in a muffin tin to make these gorgeous treats that taste a lot like apple pie!

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to make apple roses:

• Frozen Puff Pastry Dough: This stuff is magic! All the buttery flavor and flakey layers of puff pastry without any of the work. You’ll thaw the dough according to the package directions (either on the counter top or in the microwave) then build the apple roses. Just be sure to keep the dough cold – if it gets too warm you’ll need to pop it back into the fridge or freezer before baking.
• Apples: I love Pink Lady apples for this recipe. They have plenty of flavor and the pinkish red peel makes a pretty “rose petal”. If you choose to use a very tart apple, you’ll want to increase the sugar.
• Apple Pie Spice + Sugar: This sweetens up the apples and compliments their flavor. I love the extra flavor using apple pie spice gives, but if you don’t have any you can use straight cinnamon instead (pumpkin pie spice works too!).
• Apple Butter: Apple butter helps give you a “jammy” filling inside the apple roses. Other recipes I’ve seen for this dessert use apricot jam but I figured why not use apple butter to amp up the apple pie flavor? Look for it near jams and jellies (and if you can’t find it apricot jam will work!).
• Lemon Juice: You’ll want just a touch of lemon juice to keep your apple slices from turning brown.

How to Make Apple Roses

Slice Apples

To make apple roses you need thin slices of apples. First, cut each apple in half along the core. Use a sharp knife or fruit baller to remove the core and seeds. Then slice the apple very thinly perpendicular to the core. You’re looking for thin bendy slices, about 1/16th of an inch.

Toss all the apple slices in a microwave safe bowl and add enough water to cover. Add about a teaspoon of lemon juice. Then microwave the apples until they are soft enough to really bend or roll, but not so soft that they are mushy. How long you microwave will vary depending on the apple type you use, so start with three minutes, then check the apples and go from there. The Pink Lady apples I used needed six minutes to get soft enough. Next, drain away the water and toss the apples with some apple pie spice and sugar.

Prep Pastry

Now it’s time to start working with the puff pastry. Grab the first sheet of pastry and follow the package instructions to microwave it just briefly until it unfolds easily. Place on a floured surface and roll it out until it’s about 14 inches tall and 10 inches wide. Use a pizza cutter to slice into six strips (just over 2 inches tall and 10 inches wide).

Assemble

Time to assemble the roses! Spread a heaping teaspoon of apple butter across each pastry strip. Then layer six or seven slices of apple across the top half of each strip with the round edges up. The round edges of the apple will poke over the top of the strip. Fold the bottom half of the pastry up over the bottom edge of the apples.

Then roll up each pastry strip to create a rose shape, and place in a well greased cupcake tin. Put the tin with the first six roses into the fridge while you assemble the next six on the second puff pastry sheet.

Bake

Bake the apple roses at 375 degrees farhenheit for approximately 40 minutes until puff pastry is looking quite golden brown. You can use a spoon to gently lift one of the roses up to make sure the sides and bottom have gotten browned – you want the puff pastry cooked through so it’s not soggy anywhere. These taste great served warm or at room temperature.