Rose shaped apple pastry with a touch of cinnamon.  This is a very simple recipe which tastes delicious and looks beautiful.

Ingredients

2 red apples

1/2 a lemon juice

bowl filled with water

3 tablespoons of apricot jam

2 tablespoons water

1 sheet puff pastry

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon icing sugar

 

Prepare a bowl filled with cold water, squeeze the lemon juice into the water and set aside.  Use a sieve to ensure that no seeds pass through.

Cut the apples in half and remove the core. Place the apple flat surface facing down and cut the apple into very thin slices starting from the top of the apple moving downwards.

Place the thin slices of apple into the bowl of water and lemon and ensure that all apples slices are covered with liquid. Heat the bowl in the microwave for about 3 minutes, this will tender the apples. Use a sieve to drain out all the liquid from the apple slices. In a separate bowl add 2 tablespoons of water to the 3 tablespoons of jam and heat the mixture for about 1 minute in the microwave.

In the meantime heat the oven to 190 degrees celsius.  Roll out the puff pastry to be very thin. Cut the pastry into rectangular stripes of around 30cm x 8cm.  One pastry strip per each rose apple. Spread the apricot mixture on each pastry rectangle leaving at least 2mm gap from the edges.

Place the apple slices on top of the dough slightly overlapping each other and allow the apple’s rounded edge to go beyond the pastry’s edge. Sprinkle cinnamon and optional some sugar on top of the apple slices.

Fold the bottom part of the dough on top of the apple slices leaving the top rounded edges of the apples exposed.  Start from one of the edges and slightly roll, not too tight.  Seal the edges and viola’ the rose is ready.

Transfer the apples into well grease muffin pan and place into the oven for around 40 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown.

Let the roses cool for about 10 minutes and remove from tin.  Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.