The beautiful apple flower blossoms - Apple pies in a cuter version

Hello friends. It’s time for some happy days.. Christmas is nearing and all of us want to be creative in celebrating it. Isn't it?  

In the quest of doing something creative and at the same time gorgeous, I made these sweet little red apple blossoms.  It has a base of apple pie crust, and in the middle there is beautiful swirl of cinnamon-ginger spiced and sweet apple slices. And then these happy appy blossoms are baked to perfection… 

Can you guess how would these look like? Check the pictures below. Don't these look beautiful? I found it too pretty to eat.. I even had a thought to save it for a cake icing. 

But when you finally make up your mind to have these, you find them perfect for Christmas.. Yes, red invokes a festive feeling. Each little beauty is a combination of crusty base petals and a soft, sweet and spiced apple swirl filling.. It just melts in mouth… 

My husband said "These little hand made beauties are something exotic and a must-do for our friends in the upcoming parties".. 
So why wait? Make it... Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients: 

For the crust:

Now: I used clarified butter to make the crust.. You can use chilled butter in its place. 

All purpose flour (Maida) (2 cups)

Clarified butter (ghee) (3 tbsp) at room temperature. (You can also use 3/4 cup cold butter cut into smaller pieces)

Salt(1 tsp)

White granulated sugar 2 tsp in dough (some additional for garnishing)

Chilled water (around 1-2 cups for kneading the dough)

For the apple swirls:

2-3 medium sized red apples

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/4 tsp ground ginger powder(optional)

1/4 cup white granulated sugar

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

2 tsp Almond flour (for garnishing) (optional)

6-7 Blanched almonds (for garnishing)(optional)

Procedure:

Lets make the base crust dough  first.

Base Dough:

Transfer flour, sugar and salt in a large container. Mix well.

Sugar

Salt

Add butter and mix well with hands to form a crumbly mixture.

Adding ghee/clarified butter

Crumbly mixture

Add cold water little by little and knead medium soft smooth dough. I did it with hands. Kneading takes about 5-7 minutes. You can use blender/processor with a dough hook to knead the dough. 

Dough Ready

Wrap it with a plastic and let it rest in refrigerator for sometime. This will help the butter(ghee) stay solid and help you get a flaky crispy crust. Remove it 5 minutes before you want to start rolling it. 

While the dough is resting, we can start prep-work on the filling i.e apple swirls..

Filling Prep Work:

I took around 3 medium sized apples.  Cut each apple into halves and discard the seeds… Now cut each half into two and cut out thin D-shaped slices.. I did it with knife.. (Note:You can use food processor to get out thin slices.)

Apple thinly sliced in D-shape

Repeat the process for rest of the apples. 

Once you have all the thin slices ready, transfer them into a  a pan. Let the flame be on low. 

Add cinnamon powder, ginger(optional)powder, sugar and lemon juice.  (Add more sugar if you like more sweet filling.)

Cinnamon

Sugar

Ginger

Stir it well so that the apple slices are coated well with the spices. Cover the pan and let it cook for around 10-15 minutes or until the slices become soft and could be bent easily. Let it rest until we roll out and set our base crust.

Making Base Flower Crust:

Transfer the dough on a flat surface. Sprinkle some flour on it. Using a rolling pin, roll it out like you do for a paratha. Let it be of medium thickness.

Rolled out dough

Cut out as many medium sized heart shapes as you can using a cookie cutter.

Cutting heart shaped petals

Heart shaped petals

Now brush your cupcake baking tray with cooking spray/butter. Arrange 3-4 heart pieces by overlapping each in a cup cake stand. (I used 3 in each). Keep the heart shapes on top, and narrow bottom in centre. Press overlapping ends and middle base so that the shape is intact.  (Note: I used silicon baking cups.. But I think metal cupcake baking tray would be a better option.)

Flower base crust 

Repeat the same for rest of the flower bases. Once the flower bases are ready, keep them in refrigerator for 5-10 minutes.

Ready flower base crusts

Making Apple swirls:

Now starts our creative work to make beautiful apple roses.

Arrange around 12-15 slices overlapping each other in a linear fashion as shown in picture.

Apple slices arranged in linear fashion

Repeat the same for rest of the apple slices. You may be able to form around 6 such columns of apple slices. 

Now start rolling a line of such apple slices from left to right. Use thumb and fingers to do this, so that the flower doesn't deform. Once you have it ready arrange it in middle of the base flower crust that we prepared earlier.

Rolling out apple slices

Placed apple swirls in flower base crust

Repeat the same to form other apple flower swirls. Arrange each in flower base crusts. 

Apple flower blossoms ready to be baked

Baking the beautiful apple flower blossoms.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degree F. 

Sprinkle some granulated sugar over each flower. Sprinkle some ground almond flour too. I inserted a blanched almond in the middle of each flower to enhance its look. But this is completely optional.

Sprinkled sugar, almond flour and placed almond in the center

Bake these for around 30-35 minutes or until you see a beautiful golden crust. 

Let it cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Ready apple flower blossoms..

I assure you these would turn out beautiful and taste as amazing as they look. Beauty with taste :-). Best for festive season. Enjoy the gorgeous apple flower blossoms with your loved ones.. 
Add your comments in the comments section. I would love to hear your feedback.

See you again with some new recipe…

Till then.. Happy cooking…

Cheers,

Shweta