Healthy & Delicious: Quick & Easy Apple Tart
Note: On Mondays, Kristen Swensson of Cheap, Healthy, Good swings by these parts to share healthy and delicious recipes with us. Take it away, Kristen!
It’s hard out there for a pimp healthy cooking enthusiast. Everyday, we’re faced with the Paula Deens and Mario Batalis of the world, tempting us with rich sauces, heavy starches, and sticks upon sticks of glorious butter. Everyday, we attempt to resist them, substituting fruit for flan and carrots for spaghetti carbonara. And everyday, our resolve crumbles a bit more.
Of course, reading a bajillion cooking blogs doesn’t help. Especially when one of them is The Pioneer Woman Cooks.
I’ve been following Ree Drummond’s recipe site for about a year and a half now, and it’s been an exercise in envy. See, while every recipe is undeniably enticing, none have been low-calorie enough for my nefarious blogging purposes. So usually, I just sit, scroll, and attempt not to short out my keyboard with incessant drooling.
Then, a few weeks ago, she posted her Quick & Easy Apple Tart. And all was right in the world.
Made of five simple ingredients (puff pastry, apples, brown sugar, lemon, and salt), it looked to be an attractive, simple dessert. Further research revealed that when split into six portions, each serving hovered around 270 calories and 11 grams of fat. Not too shabby for what’s essentially an open-faced apple turnover.
When I made it myself, I changed two small things based on feedback from Pioneer Woman commenters. First, the recipe asks for 3 or 4 apples, but I found 2 was sufficient. Second, I scaled the brown sugar back by about a third, to prevent it from overflowing and burning to the pan. The result was still plenty sweet, and I avoided some extra scrubbing.
In the end: victory. Delicious, seemingly indulgent victory. If you’ve got a few minutes, I highly suggest trying it yourself. Then, try some of those other dishes. If you let me live vicariously through you, I promise I won't tell anyone.
Quick & Easy Apple Tart
- serves 6-
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.
Ingredients
1 sheet puff pastry, mostly thawed and cut in halves or thirds
2 medium baking apples, cored, halved, and sliced (but not peeled)
1/2 lemon
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 415°F.
2. Place puff pastry rectangles on a baking pan that’s been sprayed with nonstick spray.
3. Squeeze lemon over apples and stir gently. Add sugar and salt to apples. Stir gently to combine. Allow to sit for a few minutes.
4. Arrange apple slices on the pastry rectangles in a straight line, overlapping as you go.
5. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until pastry is puffed and golden brown.
6. Remove from pan immediately and place on a serving platter. Serve plain, with caramel topping, whipped cream, or a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
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7 Comments:
PW's cinnamon rolls are a must, but def not healthy! I'll give this one a try and I'm looking forward to trying her chocolate sheet cake.
_greenbean at 11:26AM on 06/22/09
healthy???? not trying to rain on the parade but puff pastry is almost pure butter...
grapas at 12:47PM on 06/22/09
i agree with grapas : puff pastry = not healthy
just because a dessert has a bit of fruit in it, doesn't make it healthy.
i am all for everything in moderation, but i wouldn't try to pass this dessert off as a health food haha
delicious, yes. Healthy, no.
Deeberry at 1:05PM on 06/22/09
Healthy is an interesting concept because it assumes a set of "guidelines" that can vary based on people's specific goals. My approach to eating (and philosophy on cooking) is that the use of whole foods - minimally processed foods - is preferable from a health standpoint than anything with the words "low fat" on the label. I'm not as worried about the "fat content" of the puff pastry as I am about store-bought (processed) puff pastry.
The great thing about learning to cook over following recipes is that you are free to make any substitutions necessary for your own health goals as well as your personal tastes. This "recipe" serves as an idea - a starting point. Then it is "less apples and brown sugar" for one person; maybe homemade (healthier) puff pastry using whole grain flour for another. A recipe will never teach you how to do this...
ChefToddMohr at 1:27PM on 06/22/09
If you are diabetic, you should avoid this dish. If you are troubled with high cholesterol, you should avoid this dish. If, on the other hand, you are healthy, a slice of this tart isn't going to do you harm. Sitting down and eating the entire thing by yourself with a jug of milk is gluttony and that is a deadly sin--as in deadly. You have a bad habit you need to address.
Otherwise, this is a fine dessert and should be described as such.
Grumpy Old Man at 1:56PM on 06/22/09
Maybe not necessarily "healthy", but I would certainly consider this a low calorie dessert (which is what I assume the author was hinting about). I have a similar dilemma as I'm trying to lose weight, and my focus is on the amount of calories I am consuming.
Thanks for bringing light to this recipe. It'll give me a little variety and seems pretty easy to bake up.
hungryhungryhippo at 3:50PM on 06/22/09
Try this with apples, mangos and a few orange slices. Holy Cow! You'll think you died and went to Heaven!
old chef at 7:53PM on 06/24/09