Easy Apple Apricot Ricotta Tarts

Puff pastry is a dream come true when you have a combi steamer. Puff pastries thrive in an oven which provides steam during the initial stage of cooking  followed by intense heat so the layers expand to give you lovely, flaky layers. Making your own dough from scratch maybe tedious but very therapeutic. If you need to release stress, this is an excellent outlet 🙂

Frozen puff pastry is the way to go for the rest of us. Give the frozen puff pastry about 5 minutes to thaw. Work while the pastry is semi frozen, or else they will be too flimsy. The beauty of puff pastry is, you can cut, fold, roll in any way and they will turn out nice .. Be creative. If you need ideas, simply google. Some amazing techniques out there.

Here is a simple but delicious recipe to start with.

Ingredients

2 frozen puff pastry sheets

———————————

1 green apple (red is fine too but tart green is better)

8 pcs dried apricot

2/3 cup ricotta cheese (no need to measure, just enough to bind)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 lemon – juice

pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon

——————————–

Optional

Glazed cherries (whole or cut up)

Icing powder

Dark 70% Chocolate 100g

Method

  1. Cut unpeeled apples and apricot into small cubes and marinate in lemon juice
  2. Mix all part 2 ingredients
  3. Allow 2 sheets of puff pastry from the freezer, 5 mins to thaw
  4. Cut each sheet 3×3 to get 9 tarts
  5. Using a  melon scoop, put a dollop in the middle of each tart
  6. Pinch, roll, invent.. to seal
  7. Optional, place a cherry on top
  8. Bake on Professional bake function, 200c – 25 mins, or BakeOmatic fresh aperitif nibbles, medium brown or preheated hot air humid/convection 200c for about 15 minutes until golden brown
  9. Optional toppings – dust with icing sugar OR, drizzle with chocolate* and dust with icing sugar
  • Put 100g broken pieces of dark chocolate in a zip lock bag and steam at 50c for 5 mins. Cut a small slit at the corner and drizzle