Tuesdays with Dorie - Potential Tartlet Ruin by Modern Technology

I've decided to join the Tuesdays with Dorie people, following in my good friends', KPOW and SS, footsteps. I actually purchased the book several weeks ago and have been following the recipes "behind the scenes" to see if I could handle it. I love it - I have always loved cooking and baking but I am not as skilled at baking, so this gives me a chance to practice.

When I saw the recipe for this week, I was both excited and a teensy-bit disappointed. Seriously? A recipe with four ingredients, one of which was pre-fab pastry dough? Well, hell's bells . . . I could that. Heck! Even my three year old could do that. Famous last words . . . .

I went to the store with the best of intentions. The note provided in the book said that Pepperidge Farm puff pastry was perfectly serviceable, but all-butter dough would be better. So, I went to the store in town that always has the best chance of having higher-quality or harder-to-find ingredients. I was a little disappointed to see that the store only had the Pepperidge Farm brand, but thought I could live through it. (After all - it was still puff pastry dough - one of the best things on Earth. Ever.)

However, what I hadn't planned for was simultaneously grocery shopping and having a text message conversation with my boyfriend. So, I admit, I was a little distracted when I grabbed a package of Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry without really reading the box.

Fast forward to last night. After dinner (and before the new episode of Intervention*), I headed to the kitchen to whip up these Parisian Apple Tartlets and for the first time took a good look at the package. Crap. This particular puff pastry was obviously meant to be cooked then stuffed, not stuffed then cooked. Plus, they were tiny - about three inches across:

Hmm. I may have stumbled upon my first TWD failure, and I hadn't even really begun.

But, I rallied. Convinced it would be really hard to screw up pre-fab puff pastry, sugar, butter, and apples, I peeled and "chunked" my apple. Unfortunately, the chunks were bigger than the pastry. So, then I sliced the apple and arranged it on the sil-pat.

I foresaw disaster. There was no way for the pastry to puff when the entire hexagon was covered with apple without causing the apple and sugar to fall off. But, I rallied. Again. I decided I needed an apple/sugar/butter containment system that would allow the pastry to puff around the apple while providing support for the apple. Searching through my cabinets, I stumbled upon mini tartlet pans. Who knew?

They certainly looked pretty precooked.

In the end, I think the only thing I really saved was cleaning off the sil-pat because the butter/sugar mixture burned along the bottom and the pastry didn't puff as well as it should have.

As I served the tartlets to my boyfriend, I said, "Please note the beautiful one-of-a-kind black lace sugar doily on the bottom. And the artfully arranged black crumbs on the plate. That's very special. You don't see that technique everyday. Appreciate it."

All that being said, they tasted very good (even the burnt parts) and were just the right size for a snack.

Next week should be better, right? I mean, it's just ice cream . . . how could I screw that up?**

*Is it wrong to eat French Pastry while watching an intervention of two really creepy twin anorexics? Turns out . . . I don't have a good answer for that question.

**I think this may become the theme of my TWD experiences - "How Could I Screw That Up? Well, Let Me Show You the Ways . . . ."