Salted Caramel Apple (T)art

This apple-icious tart is a sleeker version of the classic pie. # 144: Salted Caramel Apple (T)art

I’ve never had a dessert pizza, but it should definitely be like this. Gooey salted caramel on thin slices of tart apple on a bed of crispy puff pastry.

I know it’s sacrilegious to say, but I’ve never been a huge fruit pie fan. Too much hot fruit, not enough crust! This tart is more my style – just a few gorgeous apples decorating a puffy, caramel-y crust.

How do you say caramel? “Car-uh-mell” or “car-mull”? Apparently both are acceptable versions, but we all gravitate towards one or the other. I’m firmly in the “car-mull” camp. (Which now seems like the lazy side considering the other pronunciation is phonetic.) According to a survey by Werther’s Original, about half the United States is lazy like me and simply ignores the second “a”!

Look at these beauties! My friend and I went up Hwy 50 to Apple Hill in search of cider doughnuts last weekend. You know, the delicious rings of fried apple cake dough covered in cinnamon sugar? They’re way more of a thing on the East Coast (West Coast is still best coast, despite our preference for pumpkin patches over apple orchards) but we found one a few hours away and jumped on it.

When we got to Rainbow Orchards, it was clear from the doughnut line that we weren’t the only ones who had an apple-shaped brainwave. They had this awesome dough dispenser that hung above the vat of frying oil and dropped perfect rings of dough at the pull of a handle. Mesmerizing. For this tart, I went with one of each of my favorites: a Granny Smith, a Golden Delicious, and a Pink Lady.

You can keep the apple skins for smoothies!

The recipe called for a mandolin but a knife works just as well. Aaand you’re more likely to keep all your fingers intact.

I used store-bought puff pastry *gasp* because I’m human and Fall is always particularly busy for me. Frozen puff is the secret weapon everyone should have in their freezer at all times!

This is the part where you want to work quickly! If you take your sweet time arranging the apples, they’ll start to oxidize before you can bake em.

Voila! Art.

Since I cut them by hand, the slices are the tiniest bit thicker than the recipe calls for. That just means more deliciousness once baked!

It snowed butter and sugar! Best kind of blizzard.

While apples are baking away, it’s caramel time! I’m really feeling the aesthetic of the ingredients. I only used the tiniest bit of cinnamon, but I’ll add a liiiiittle more next time.

Can you see the edge beginning to melt? It’s so hard to not stir the sugar while it’s melting but it’s best to not agitate it. Ain’t nobody got time for unwanted crystallization.