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.

Orange Scones for the win!

I don't know why, but I really love orange flavored things. I love citrus things, but I really love orange everything. It's a just a flavor that reminds me so much of spring. Spring is my favorite season too. I mean living in Texas the weather is always the best, not to hot, just perfect. Also my birthday is in the spring so Oranges for some reason remind me of that. I decided to make scones because I've never baked them before and thought that they would be a nice easy thing to make. I've had scones before at coffee shops and I liked the texture of them. I don't know if it's the southern girl in me but I like the biscuit like texture and that they aren't overly sweet.  I looked through my pantry and realized I had everything except sour cream and I had a couple of oranges I needed to do something with. Also this recipe will leave your house smelling amazing. Ok, so thats why I decided on the orange scones. So here's what you are going to need for this recipe.

Orange Scones 

Orange Scones

• 1/3 cup sugar

• zest of one large orange or two medium oranges

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen

• 1/2 cup sour cream

• 1 large egg

Orange Glaze

• 3 tbs unsalted butter, melted

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• 2-4 tbs freshly squeezed orange juice 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and set oven rack to the middle position. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.

I like to sift my dry ingredients together, I hate all that clumpy stuff.

In a medium-sized bowl, gently toss flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a separate small bowl, whisk sour cream and egg until completely smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir sugar and orange zest together until sugar is moistened and zest is evenly distributed.

 Pour in flour mixture and toss to combine. 

Grate frozen butter into mixture.

Using your hands, work in the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.

 Gently stir in sour cream mixture until just about combined.

 Do not over work the dough! Again, very gently press the dough against the sides of the bowl a few times and form a ball.

 The dough will be sticky at first but will come together as you form it.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface and lightly pat into an 8 inch circle about 3/4 of an inch thick. Use a very sharp knife to cut into 8 triangles (think like you're slicing a pizza). 

Transfer triangles onto prepared baking sheet. You can arrange them in two rows, 4 in each row, or arrange them in a circle shape - leaving about 1" between each one. (I like placing them in two rows because I feel like they get crispier around the edges better)

Bake scones for 15-17 minutes or until the tops begin to golden. (don't take them out too early or they will be too soft) 

Allow them to cool for 10 minutes on the pan before transferring onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely. During this time, you can prepare the glaze.

Time for the glaze

Stir together melted butter, confectioner's sugar, vanilla and orange juice until smooth.

 Once completely cooled, go ahead and either dip the tops of the scones into the glaze or drizzle it on top with a spoon. 

I also decided that I needed something on the top, so I zested another orange and mixed that zest with a little granulated sugar. I then added that to the top, more orange flavor guys.

Now you have some yummy orange scones that you can eat with your coffee or tea. Pretend you live in the UK or something. Oh serve these for brunch on Saturday, or add dried cranberries to your dough and make cranberry-orange scones. Hey it's up to you.

Pumpkin Cheesecake for the win

In the fall I love making pumpkin cheesecakes. This is like my go to dessert. This is a request from friends who have had my cheesecakes and want to try out this recipe. The cool thing about my cheesecake recipe is that you can definitely customize this to your taste, and use the base of this recipe for any flavor cheesecake. Using this base I've made apple cinnamon cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, strawberry lemon, key lime, so many cheesecakes. I've also made this cheesecake so many times that I can literally make it just blindly. So let's start with what you will need.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin cheesecake filling

• 1  cup of canned pumpkin
• 4  8oz packages of cream cheese (softened room temp)
• 4  large eggs (room temp)
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon of nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon of ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon of ground cardamom
• 2 tablespoon of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of allspice

Pumpkin cheesecake crust

• 30 gingersnap cookies
• 1 stick melted butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Chocolate ganache for the top

• 1 cup dark chocolate morsels 
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

First I start by taking my springform pan and I spray it with cooking spray and set it aside.

You can preheat your oven to 350F

Next I start on the crust. Take those gingersnap cookies and smash them in a ziplock bag or if you have a food processor you can place them in there. You are trying to just get crumbs. Honestly you don't have to crush them to a fine dust, I keep my gingersnap pieces kind of big.  Maybe I'm lazy, but it doesn't matter in the end.

Once you finish grinding up those cookies add in the 1/4 cup of granulated sugar (sometimes I add 1 tablespoon of cinnamon now) and the melted butter.

Press the cookie crust mixture to the bottom of your springform pan. I press lightly and up the sides a bit.

Place the pan in the oven to bake for 6 minutes then remove.

Next on to the actual filling.

Ok place those four cream cheese blocks and 3/4 cups granulated sugar into your stand mixer with a paddle attachment (hey not everyone has a stand mixer, you can definitely use a hand mixer) start on medium speed.

Now is when I like to add all of the spices, 1 cup of pumpkin and vanilla extract. I put them all in and give the mixer a spin and then taste this cream cheese mixture and see if I need to add more cinnamon. I like a strong pumpkin spiced flavor so just taste it. this is the only time you can taste your mixture before you add in those eggs. So taste it and adjust. Also when you bake things in the oven the spice subsides, so add more. 

Now add your 3 tablespoons of flour to your mixture.

Add a 1/4 tablespoon of salt to the mixture

Turn your mixer on and mix to combined. Take your room temperature eggs and one at a time add them to your cream cheese mixture. On medium speed until incorporated. Continue until each egg is mixed in the batter.

Your batter will become more liquid, and pour that mixture over the crust that has been cooling (this is important, try not to overmix your batter because it will lead to cracks on the top of  your cheesecake)

Decrease the temperature of your oven down to 325F and bake this cheesecake for 1 hour. Then turn off your oven and let the cheesecake stay in the oven for 1 hour with the oven door cracked. After that I set the cheesecake on the counter with a towel over the top, just so it gets to room temperature.

Now I did not take photos of the next step, but in the future I will. 

It's ganache time, you don't have to do this step, you can serve the cheesecake as is, maybe whip up some whipped cream, but I like the ganache top. 

Ok start by taking the cup of heavy cream and pouring it in a small saucepan or small pot on the stove on medium/high heat.  Place your cup of dark chocolate morsels in a bowl. 

When the heavy cream begins to boil take it off the heat and pour it over the dark chocolate. Let it sit for about a minute, and then stir until you get a smooth consistency.

Pour your chocolate on the top of your cheesecake starting in the center of your cheesecake (the mixture will spread out) I stop before it gets to the edge because I don't like it dripping into my springform or down the sides of the cheesecake.

Lastly place those chopped nuts on top of the ganache.

I place a piece of aluminum foil, or plastic wrap and place this in the fridge. I normally bake this a day before I would like to serve it. So after refrigeration, take the outer ring off and you are ready to serve. 

Everyone loves this for Thanksgiving

Here's with chopped pecans

So there you have, these are really easy to make and customize it how your would like it. If you'd like to just make a regular cheesecake just omit the pumpkin and spices. If you want to make chocolate cheesecake, instead of gingersnaps use Oreo cookies and add cocoa powder to the cream cheese. Yeah let me know how it goes.