The trick to these apple tarts is thinly and evenly slicing the apples. That and the judicious use of cinnamon sugar above and below the apple slices. And using cooking spray on the apple slices before baking to seal in moisture. And brushing honey over the tarts when they are warm from the oven to make the tarts shiny. Ok, so there are a few tricks.
This is a nice snack to pack for lunch. You can also use it as a take-along breakfast treat on those mornings when a sit-down breakfast just isn’t happening. Made with whole wheat flour and filled with a low-sugar (or no-sugar) blueberry chia jam, these toaster tarts have much more fiber and anti-oxidants–not to mention much more flavor–than store-bought toaster tarts.
Don’t be turned off by the idea of whole wheat flour or the chia jam. These tarts have flaky, tender crusts with a flavorful filling–exactly what handheld fruit pastries should taste like.
For this, take hamantaschen puff pastry shells, fill them with a spoonful of jam and then top with fresh fruit. Alternatively, you could fill them with vanilla pastry cream (or, more prosaically, vanilla pudding) and then top with fruit. Or you could put in a bit of jam, then vanilla pudding and then the fruit. Or you could fill them with lemon curd and then top with fruit. Or you could pipe in chocolate mousse . . . Well, you get the idea.
As in the above picture, you can dust the top of the tarts with powdered sugar. To make the fruit shiny, brush it with jam (raspberry for berries and apricot for other fruits). An easy trick for glazing the fruit is to put it in a bowl and toss it in a bit of corn syrup. This gives it a clear glaze and also makes the fruit a bit sticky, which helps bind the fruit pieces together.
Update: If you want to fill these with pareve (dairy-free) vanilla pudding, combine a box of Osem pudding mix with 3/4 cup of coconut milk. Fill each hamantaschen with a small spoonful of pudding mix and top with half a strawberry.
Other Hamantaschen:
Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Hamantaschen
Midnight Mint Hamantaschen
Basic Hamantaschen Recipe, plus tips
Darth Vader Hamantaschen
Angelina Ballerina Hamantaschen
Hamantaschen Apple Galette
Lemon Curd Hamantaschen
Hamantaschen Puff Pastry Shells
Hamantaschen French Toast Casserole
Pie crusts don’t have to be hard. This galette features a super easy crust that you just stir together. You mix together juice and oil and then stir it into flour until it forms into a ball of dough. The dough doesn’t have to be refrigerated before rolling out and it doesn’t have to be gently handled, either. If you can roll out hamantaschen dough, you can make this crust.
The texture is not flaky, but meltingly tender. Using apple juice and lemon juice in the dough gives the crust a flavor that matches the filling.
The resulting galette is especially delectable warm. Shaped into a hamantaschen it makes a nice dessert for a Purim seudah. You could also shape individual tarts for dessert. There is enough dough for two 9″ tarts or eight 4″ tarts.
This is a super easy dessert: brownie batter baked in a pie shell. It sounds like not much, but people love it served warm with ice cream. Maybe you have had brownie pies before, but do try this especially good version.
Having turned my pecan pie into bar cookies, I decided to do the same with my pumpkin pie. I used the same crust recipe as for the pecan bars, but used brown sugar and added in a little cinnamon to give the dough a streusel flavor.
Is it just me, or do you also find it next to impossible to find pareve deep dish pie crusts in the freezer section of the supermarket right before Thanksgiving? They are dairy, or the only crusts left are all broken, or something. Maybe I should have shopped earlier?
Homemade crusts are better, anyway, but I am so not in the mood to be rolling out crusts.
Fortunately, I remembered about my pecan bars. The crust is an easy press-in dough and, when all is said and done, you end up with forty bars, which is a bigger serving yield than you would get from a pie anyway. Isn’t it easier to platter and serve bar cookies than pie? Most people want just a nibble after all that heavy food.
And these pecan bars are exceptional, with a perfect balance of nuts, maple brown sugar goo and crust.
See, it turned out for the best. Who needs frozen pie crusts? Not me.
Imagine a pie that has the flavor of brownies, but the texture of pecan pie. That is chocolate chess pie. Now, imagine that pie, served warm, with a scoop of coffee ice cream (pareve).
Sounds delicious, right? The best part is that it is ridiculously easy.
I realize that most people have baked all the holiday cookies they intend to bake. We have moved from decadent treat baking frenzy to after-holiday fatigue and dieter’s remorse. So, my posts now should all be healthy dishes and not rich pastries.
All the same, I am going to share three (not just one, but three) different pastry doughs.
The first recipe is from my Grandma Rose, A”H. She used to make these cookies that looked little miniature danishes. Imagine crisp, flaky pastry with the rich dairy taste of rugelach, filled with with jewel-like drops of jam.
People go nuts over these cookies. They seem so much plainer than rugelach, without the nuts, chocolate, raisins and cinnamon sugar. But the simple contrast of jam and pastry lets the flavor and texture of the crust shine through. The dough, which is like a pie dough, but with sour cream added instead of ice water, puffs up into light flaky layers like buttery puff pastry when it is baked.
I have no idea where this recipe came from, but I pretty sure it is “old world.” I haven’t seen any recipe that uses a pastry dough that is exactly like this, but I have seen other sour cream doughs, and they are all “from bubbe” recipes.
I won’t lie to you. These are not a snap to make. There is a lot of rolling and cutting and shaping and baking.
When you bake them, they have the frustrating habit of exploding open (the dough really rises). It helps to freeze them before baking and to accept that they might still come apart a little in the oven. Dust them with powdered sugar and it won’t really matter so much.
If you have access to oven-proof jam that will help, too, because regular jam boils over in the oven (like with hamentaschen). Apricot lekvar probably would work perfectly. But, Grandma Rose used regular jam/jelly. I tried a few different flavors of jam (the contrasting colors are pretty) and I think that the better quality jams worked out a little better than the cheaper jams/jelly I used.
One more observation: remember this dough for Purim, since it would be make delicious hamantaschen (although you would really have to pinch to prevent them from exploding open and you would need to use oven-proof filling, like lekvar–supermarket jam would for sure make them explode open).
Pragmatic Attic 