Mini Apple Tarts

Want your husband to love you more than he already does? Or any person for that matter?

Make these.

It's a wee bit time consuming, but very easy. I was considerably distracted by my sickness and stew stirring, and they still came out of the oven delicious and delightful. This was doubly shocking as I had started my recipe hunt for orange-chocolate pies...

Long story short, I was quickly drawn to the apple pies, and upon finding I didn't have all the necessary ingredients, settled upon tarts... and because I couldn't find the exact kind of recipe I would like to do, decided to use a tried-and-true tart crust recipe and just ran with it.

(Really all I did was use a muffin tin instead of a cake pan, but I'm still going to call this an original.)

What You'll Need

• a tart crust dough stuff thing you love! (my favorite follows)
• 8 granny smith apples
• time

Sweet Buttery Tart Crust

this part of the recipe will take the longest
*** the amount of dough this makes is perfect for 6 servings
****** for 12 servings, I recommend making two batches of dough

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup very fine granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) sweet butter, chilled
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons cold water

Directions:

1. Sift flour, sugar and salt into a mizing bowl. Cut chilled butter into pieces into the bowl. Ising your fingertips, rapidly rub the butter and dry ingredients together until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Be careful to only use your fingertips as your palms will warm the dough.
2. Stir egg yolks, vanilla and water together and add to the flour-butter mixture and blend in, using a fork. Shape dough into a ball. This should not take more than 30 to 45 seconds. 
3. Place the ball of dough on a pastry board. With the heel of your hand, smear about 1.4 cup of dough away from you into a 6 to 8 inch smear; repeat until all dough has been dealt with. Scrape dough together; reform into a ball, wrap in wax paper, and chill for 2 to 3 hours.
4. While dough is chilling, start working on the apple slices and apple syrup.
5. Split dough into 6 individual balls and roll out so each are about 4 inches in circumference.
6. Grease your muffin tin. For extra peace of mind, line with parchment paper or use cupcake cups. Carefully insert dough and chill in the refrigerator. 
7. Preheat oven to 425 F.
8. Add in apple slices and bake for 8 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350 F and reverse the tin. Bake another 8 minutes, reverse again, and bake another 8 minutes. Remove from oven.
9. Brush on syrup, allow to cool and enjoy! These go great with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. If you want to increase your risk of diabetes more, sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Diabetes has never tasted so good. ;)

Sliced Apples & Syrup

Ingredients

• 8 granny smith apples
• about a cup of brown sugar
• about a cup of white sugar
• half a stick of butter

Directions

1. Peel and core the apples. Save these bits and drop 'em in a saucepan or pot you have a lid for.
2. Add the white sugar and about a cup of water. Cover with a lid.
3. Slice the apples into whatever size you want (just remember the size of each tart) and dump into a bowl with the brown sugar and butter and mix thoroughly. After the dough is sufficiently chilled add them in and fold the excess edges over the apple bits.
4. Occasionally stir the peels and cores. 
5. When the tarts are baking, add about another cup of water to the syrup mixture then immediately strain into a bowl. 
6. At this point in time I nibbled a peel, and upon finding it delicious, decided to save them.
7. Immediately pour the syrup back into the saucepan/pot, cover and allow to simmer on low heat.
8. When you remove the tarts from the oven, turn off the heat for the syrup. Brush it on once the tarts have cooled.