Apple Puff Pastry Tart

We have an apple overload due to this.  The apples are lovely and crunchy and delicious eaten raw, but I decided that since we have an abundance, I would make a baked good.   I had high falutin' ideas about making a pie from scratch, crust and all.  Then, I realized I have two kids and one is only 3 months old and I am tired.  I opted for this easy tart instead.

I used one puff pastry sheet, purchased from the grocery store, three large apples, one Rome, two Fujis, half a lemon, about 1/2 a cup of brown sugar (I am guesstimating here, since I didn't really measure the amount) and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I don't have a fancy apple corer thingie, so I cut out the core by cutting into the apple wedges diagonally and then thinly sliced the wedges.  The resulting slices still look pretty good.

I mixed the apple slices, lemon juice, brown sugar and cinnamon all together, letting the mixture sit a little bit until it got juicy.

Then I cut the slightly defrosted puff pastry sheet in half to make two tarts and layered the apples into each half. 

I suppose you could add more sugar and some butter to make this even tastier.  I have seen plenty of recipes with more sugar and melted butter added to the apple mixture, or with butter dotted over the top of the layered apples in the pastry prior to baking.  However, I opted to cut the sugar and fat so that I wouldn't feel too guilty about giving a big piece to this little character:

I had leftover apple mixture, but didn't want it to go to waste.  So, I threw in some walnuts and dried cherries, put the mixture along with the leftover juices into a saucepan, along with some water so that the liquid covered the apples just slightly, then cooked on the stovetop until the liquid was syrupy.

 The resulting apple concoction is good and will taste great on ice cream or on our morning oatmeal.

Look at the twin beauties.  I drizzled a little bit of the apple concoction syrup on top of the tarts.

 

I think if you want a more professional look, you could glaze the tarts with a little melted jam.  Also, if you put in more sugar and/or butter, you would definitely get way more juice at the end.  But, to us, these were very good, and not overly sweet.  Husband ate half of one in about two minutes.