Apple Pie Tarts For The Win!

Hey friends and family, I haven't been posting in a bit thats because it's almost my birthday! I mean I'm not trying to stockpile my home with baked goods when I know I will have a cake or cupcakes from some bakery soon. Also I have been baking, just not at my home so it's harder to take pictures and have everything laid out for this blog. I'm going to be making Galaxy Macarons again Saturday maybe, or what I'm going to call toast and jam macarons (frosted flakes with blackberry buttercream.) We will see. Lets get to the point I just randomly decided to make these little apple pie inspired dessert because it's Pi day (3.14). I totally made these up, so I feel they are in between an apple pie, an apple tart, and a cheesecake.  They look so cute, my original plan was to make mini apple pies with a lattice top. Honestly I had mini ideas, but I'll save those for another post. I also feel like this recipe takes no time total 20 minutes bake time, and a few minutes to prepare and cook the apples.
Look at how cute these little things are as they cool. It will really have your home smelling like Autumn in the middle of spring.

Apple pie tart

So lets get started, here's the ingredients you need. I did not need to go to the store for anything, so you can probably whip these up tonight. This recipe made four cute mini round tarts. You can also eyeball it and increase this or make one big tart.

Apple Pie Tart

Crust

• 1 1/3 cup crushed graham crackers
• 4 oz melted butter (half of one stick)
• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tablespoon of Chinese five spice (optional)

Filling

• 8oz of cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of Chinese five spice (optional)

You will also need

• 1 large Granny smith apple (thinly sliced)
• 4 oz of butter (half a stick of butter)
• 1/3 of a cup of granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cinnamon
• 1/2 tablespoon of Chinese five spice (optional)

Ok, so let's see. take those graham crackers and grind them into crumbs, put them in a food processor, or a ziplock bag and pulverize them until you get a crumb texture (fine powder). Measure out 1/1/3 cup and place in a bowl

Melt your 4 oz of butter in the microwave and just add that to the graham cracker crumbs like so

Mix them until you get like a sand texture, just to where the crumbs stick together

Now take your little round tart pans, or whatever you are baking this in (springform pan, mini springform pans, big tart pans, or even a muffin tin) Press the crumbs in after you spray your pans.

Press the mixture down into the bottom to from a crust. 

Place this in a 350F oven for about 5 minutes

Take your granny smith apple (one was enough) and slice them thinly. If you have a mandolin, this will take no time. If you have amazing knife skills go ahead and slice them thinly. I think mine are sliced 1/8 of an inch.

I like them thin because they cook faster, I hate crunchy apples in pies, also using a mandolin will give you even apple slices. You can buy a hand held mandolin I know for under 20 bucks maybe under 15 dollars. I have a bigger one and I know for sure it was under 50 dollars, and you can slice all kinds of things. 

Apples tend to get brown quickly when the air hits them but this doesn't matter because we are going to cook these and your are not going to tell.

Next take 4 oz of butter and a pan and melt it down, I had the stove burner on medium high heat

I then added the apples and spices

You will basically sautéed these until they were soft, the butter and sugar spices will make a nice caramel sauce so don't through that away. Cook these for a few minutes on the stove top just until they are soft. Don't walk away and let this burn or it will be bad. I mean burnt sugar is disgusting. The apples should look like this.

So now I take about 3 to 4 slivers of apples and place them on top of the graham cracker crust. (I forgot to take a picture of this step)

Now you need to work on the filling. 

Take your room temperature cream cheese and add in your cinnamon and any other spice your would like to use. I added Chinese five spice because I didn't have any allspice, and it basically has a similar flavor profile as those spices. Hey if you have cardamom use that, if you have nutmeg use that. Blend that slowly with your hand mixer.

I then added the powdered sugar and blended slowly just to incorporate then added the vanilla and blended on high

I then piped this on the apples and graham cracker crust, then with a knife I smoothed it out.

Now, I added one little apple slice on top of each tart.

I placed these in the 350F oven for about 15 minutes

When I took them out of the oven to cool, I spooned the sauce that was left in the pan over the tarts

so yummy

I then placed them in the fridge, until time to serve. I'll probably sprinkle these with a dusting of powdered sugar when I take them out of the tart pan. You can also serve these with a dollop of fresh whipped cream or even a scope of vanilla ice cream.