#nerdy baking

~A final Supernatural season premiere dessert~

French Apple Pie made with apples from my parents orchard mixed with fall spices and a generous splash of apple pie moonshine. Pie and booze for our Dean and organic homegrown apples for our health conscious Sam. ♥️

So check it out. 

@wonderlandleighleigh and @dettiot have many interests. 

Like so many.

One of those happens to be baking. Mostly cupcakes (though we’ve been known to dabble in cookies, scones, breads and other endeavors), and mostly to share with friends, coworkers and family.

A few years ago, we toyed with creating cupcakes based on our favorite characters from TV, Movies and Comics, but we never did anything with it. We didn’t have the funds to start our own business, and we worried about stepping over a line into copyright infringement as well. 

So our spread sheet full of ideas sat in a shared google doc, waiting for the day when it would again see the light.

And then, one day Leigh said “Hey. We could make the cupcakes, and then post them in a blog! That would be fun!” 

And Melissa said “That DOES sound like fun!” 

So that’s what we’re doing.

I waffled for waaaaaay too long on @salroase2 ‘s request, because I didn’t want to settle for a rolandberry cream cheese spread but fresh red currant berries are REALLY hard to come across. But then I looked closer at the recipe and realized the gelatin was likely to create jam or jelly from the currants and I felt stupid - mostly because currant jelly is so much easier to find. Once that was resolved I was able to get my hands on some and OFF WE WENT.

These particular tarts are something I like to call pull-apart tarts. Essentially, you bake the circles of puff pastry in the oven, allowing them to puff up tall. Then, you split the puffed bread into segments, resulting in a bunch of bite-size puff tarts. 

Let’s go!

~Ingredients~

2 sheets Puff Pastry

1 jar Red Currant jam or jelly (~12 oz.)

1 Egg, beaten

(Optional) Powdered Sugar or Whipped Cream, for topping

Prep Time: <10 min. | Total Bake Time: ~ 30 min.

Makes: ~24

~Instructions~

Step 1.) Preheat the oven to 400°F. Beat the egg in a bowl and set aside. 

Step 2.) Use a circular cookie cutter to cut the puff pastry into circles (I used a cookie cutter approx. 2.5-3″ in diameter.) Score the sides of the circles with a fork for maximum puffiness, if desired. Brush the tops of the circles with beaten egg and bake for about 15 - 20 min. or until the tops are a light to medium brown.

Step 3.) Allow the circles to cool for a couple of minutes, then comes the fun part! Each of the circles should have puffed up considerably, and should have some clear segmentation in the puffs. Target these segments and pull them apart horizontally so you have a bunch of thinner disks (I think the most segments I got out of a single circle was 4 segments). Don’t try to pull apart the puffs if they don’t look like they’ll give, I destroyed a few that way (they were delicious by themselves). When you’re done, you should have an ample number of puff disks like pictured below. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for any remaining batches of puff pastry.

Step 4.) Once the puff pastry has cooled a bit more, fill in the circles with spoonfuls of red currant jelly/jam. Don’t be surprised if you use up the entire jar. Top with powdered sugar or whipped cream if desired, and enjoy!

~Results~

Sweet, simple, delicious, and containing a very satisfying crunch! The roommates where chomping at the bit for me to photograph them so they could devour them all!

Part 1 of my Christmas present from my bro!