When lemons are $0.89 apiece at Shaw’s, you know it’s time to head to Johnny D’s. Three for $1.00 is more like it. I needed a tablespoon of lemon juice for my new favorite dessert creation — apple, goat cheese, and honey tartlets. Tonight was my monthly gourmet dinner group, and the theme was apples and cinnamon. I scoured Epicurious for the perfect apple recipe, and though I found about a dozen recipes I loved the looks of, I couldn’t get the idea of these tartlets out of my head. I generally trust any Bon Appétit recipe, and the reviews seemed mostly favorable. And since the recipe appeared to be fairly simple, I decided to really challenge myself by making my own puff pastry. I used Joanne Chang’s recipe from the Flour cookbook, which calls for a whopping (but delicious) one pound of butter. And the tartlets recipe was for eight servings. That equals half a stick of butter per person. So obviously, I knew these would be good.
And oh, were they good. The puff pastry was perfectly puffed, the goat cheese/apple combination was divine, and a drizzle of honey before serving prettied it up. This is definitely one of my proudest culinary moments. (And don’t mind the mess it made on my pan — that’s just honey and butter and cinnamon oozing from the pastries.)
