Apple Rose Tarts

You eat with your eyes - so they say.....

Aren't these little apple rose tarts gorgeous to look at? They tasted good too! The tarts featured on a dessert menu I had to develop for one of the units of my Patisserie and Confectionery NVQ Course. The menu needed to have a floral theme and be designed for an establishment catering for visitors to the Chelsea Flower Show.

These tarts are actually relatively easy to make, if a little time consuming, and can be prepared in advance for a stunning dinner party dessert to impress friends. The sweet pastry cases, which do not need blind baking, have a couple of tablespoons of apple custard mixture placed into them and are topped with rolled up apple 'petals'. These are made by cutting red skinned apples into thin semi circular slices and simmering them in apple juice and sugar for about 15 minutes until soft and pliable. After cooling the petals are rolled up and carefully arranged into the tart cases. The pink tinged cooking syrup is further reduced and used to glaze the tart and dress the plate after the tarts have been cooked.

In my virtual restaurant the tarts would be served with a drizzle of syrup on a plain white plate and a small jug of homemade Creme Anglaise.

 

One other dessert on my 'menu' was a daisy shaped meringue shell with mango ice cream and mango fruit coulis. Presentation wise it needed a bit of refinement but it tasted good.

I also created some chocolate tulip shaped shells using small water balloons and tempered white and dark chocolate. Once the chocolate had set the balloons were carefully deflated, filled with chocolate mousse and served with raspberries and raspberry coulis.

Thankfully I have family and friends who don't mind being guineau pigs when it comes to testing my creations and they went down well too!