Inspiration at Apple Time

Manuela Frankenthaler
modernist exhibit MKE Art Museum

Nothing's better than being able to be inspired to combine 2 loves...
I had limited time in the kitchen since I cut it a bit close returning late afternoon to the End of the Rainbow Valley after a wonderful arts weekend with Milwaukee friends.

I had the where with all to precook the holiday meal brisket. It was a new sauce recipe mixing a homemade bar-b-que sauce with soy sauce and I was a bit leery but it did come out terrific. I added the garden potatoes to the sliced meat and its sauce upon my return and stuck those back in the oven to cook longer. I had a good hour before dinner time. Brisket in my opinion always tastes better after reheating, tenderizing it even more. Anyhow, Natureman had made a sweet slaw to accompany it all, we had pickled sides too. BUT the inspiration of this blog entry was an apple dessert of Apple Roses I had seen on line that remained to be tried. 

Without time to look for the recipe, could I pull this off? We have lost some of our 40 year old apple trees so the small apple orchard looks pretty sad but there are still some apples and the recipe had only called for two. No red apples but I had red sugar I could sprinkle. 

The oven was preheated to 400 degrees. When cleaning out the freezer this summer there amidst the year's leftovers was one sheet of frozen puff pastry dough . I let it thaw as 4 small apples were sliced thinly after cutting off the ends and coring them. I had added some lemon juice to a small bowl of water so the apples wouldn't brown. Popped those in the microwave for less than a minute. Meanwhile slicing the pastry sheet into strips 4 strips and rolling those out. 

In the frig was apricot preserve I brushed on the rolled out strip of dough. The softened apple slices were placed overlapping at the top of the dough strip, then sprinkles with a sugar and cinnamon mixture and rolled. 

The completed rolls were placed into a cupcake tin sheet, popped in the oven for 45 minutes and VOILA, a new holiday recipe APPLE ROSES. Did you figure out the 2 loves I mentioned besides eating ?Cooking a simple new recipe and something that looks artistic too!

Visuals are always the best so here's the inspirational youtubevideo of cooking with Manuela: Apple Roses