Apple Experiment

This weekend is Apple Fest at our church. Among other things, we're having an apple bake-off. There are a LOT of good bakers at my church, so I wanted to do something a little different than a regular apple pie or apple cake. When I was in 7th grade, I learned to make pie pastry, and was pretty good at it. Lately, I've been having issues with pie pastry. It's gotten to be more difficult to deal with, and I don't know why. Instead, I decided to use the dough recipe that goes with the Pecan Tartlets I make every year at Christmas. This dough uses butter, cream cheese, and flour. It's very simple, delicious, and flaky, at least in the form of mini tarts.

Today, we're going to another Renaissance Day field trip (like this one), and I decided to give my experiment a trial run before the bake-off. The basic procedure is easy: mix the dough, roll out, cut out rounds, fill with a little applesauce, fold over, pinch closed, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, bake at 350 degrees. Easy, right?

I made up the dough, and realized that it doesn't roll out as well as traditional pie dough. It's very tender & delicate, and tended to fall apart on me. Also, I was using a very chunky applesauce for the filling, and some of the chunks were too large. I got one round on the Silpat and in the oven and was pretty frustrated. While they cooked, I rolled and cut out the rest of the dough, but didn't fill them right away. Maybe the waiting made the difference. Maybe I rolled the dough out thicker. I don't know what it was, but the second batch was much sturdier than the first. Also, after brushing with the egg wash, I dunked the top side in the cinnamon sugar before sprinkling more on once they were on the Silpat. Much better coverage!

It's not hard to tell which ones were from the second half.

At any rate, I think they all taste fine, but I have a confession: I'm tired. I've been working more lately, and more in the evenings. I don't feel like making finicky dough again. So for Sunday's entry, I'm going to buy some puff pastry and use that instead. It'll probably taste even better, and I know it'll be easier. More pictures to come!