It’s been a very long time since I worked in professional kitchens in London. Long enough that my ability to remember exact recipes fades a little more each year. Yet somehow, I still remember these tartlets like I’m that younger version of myself again, trying to prove I deserved a spot in that kitchen and often having to hold my own as a young woman in a country and culture new to me. But you aren’t hear to listen to me reminisce about my youth, you are here for the caramel apple tartlets, and so you should be because they have stood the test of time and are delicious.
They’re deceptively simple to make and look far more impressive than the effort involved. A proper showstopper without needing to put on much of a show. Better yet, pre-cooked they freeze very well, which means you can make a batch ahead of time and pull them out whenever unexpected guests arrive — or when you simply want to thank your past self for being organised when the craving for a caramel laced homemade dessert strikes.
I like them served warm with vanilla ice cream or crème anglaise, either cinnamon or vanilla. Though honestly, they’re equally great eaten cold straight from the kitchen bench with a cup of tea.
I use store-bought puff pastry here, but it must be all-butter puff pastry. Yes, you can make your own, but unless you genuinely enjoy laminating dough, the effort-to-reward ratio starts getting questionable pretty quickly. What I won’t compromise on is using a mandolin. Unless you have the knife skills of a lifetime sushi chef, getting apples sliced paper-thin by hand is optimistic at best.
The combination is classic – flaky all-butter puff pastry, a layer of almond cream, paper-thin apples and glossed with caramel just before the final few minutes of baking that elevates them from every day to glossy jewels. The thin apple slices soften quickly and crisp slightly at the edges while the pastry holds it all together.
Worth Making?
- Yes — if you want a dessert that looks like you put in significantly more effort than you actually did
- Yes — if you like the combination of buttery pastry, thin apples, caramel and almonds without the heaviness of a full tart
- Yes — if you enjoy having something in the freezer ready to bake when guests appear or dessert cravings strike unexpectedly
- Skip it — if you don’t have a mandolin or another mechanism to get the apples paper thin
- Skip it — if you’re after a rustic or throw together dessert. This one requires a little effort to get together but they freeze well.
- Skip it — if you insist on making your own puff pastry every time because at that point this stops being an easy tartlet and starts becoming a weekend project
Apple Caramel Tartlets
Ingredients
- 6 to 8 Granny Smith apples
- 2 Sheets All butter puff pastry about 350 grams
- 120 ml caramel sauce
- 150 grams almond cream
Caramel Sauce
- 200 grams caster sugar
- 1 tsp glucose Honey or golden syrup will work if you don’t have glucose. It can also be omitted, the glucose helps prevent the sugar from crystallising
- 85 grams butter
- 120 ml whipping cream
Almond Cream
- 250 grams butter (softened) if using unsalted, add 1/4 tsp salt
- 250 grams caster sugar
- 250 grams ground almonds
- 35 grams flour
- 3 large eggs
Instructions
Caramel Sauce
- Combine sugar, glucose and 60ml water in small saucepan. Mixture should look like wet sand
- Cook sugar and water mixture on stove (do not stir – this will increase chance of it crystallising) and cook to approximately 175 C or beginning to caramelise
- Once to temperature, add butter and cream. Turn off heat and stir until cream and butter melted into sugar and you have a smooth caramel sauce.
- Set caramel sauce aside. It will need to be warm to baste the tarts. It can be made ahead and re-warmed to a texture that can be brushed on to the tarts.
Almond Cream
- Cream butter and sugar in mixer (or by hand if no mixer)
- Add eggs and mix until smooth and fully incorporated
- Add ground almonds and flour and mix until combined
Assemble Tarts
- Preheat oven to 170 C and line baking sheet with baking paper or silpate mat
- Using an 8cm circle cutter (or a cup if no cutters) cut puff pastry and place on tray. Can also cut into squares if you don’t have anyway to easily cut circles.
- Using a fork, prick the tops of each tart to prevent pastry from ‘puffing’ while cooking
- Place roughly 1 tb of the almond paste on top of each pastry disc
- Peel apples and finely slice using a mandolin – slice the stack of apples in half and through the middle ensuring any bits of core are removed
- Fan a stack of apples across each mound of almond cream covering completely (roughly 1/2 to 1 apple)
Bake and Glaze tarts
- Cook tarts in the oven for 20-30 minutes until bottom of pastry is browned and almond cream is cooked through.
- Approximately 5 minutes before the tarts are fully cooked, remove from the oven and using a pastry brush, brush all over with caramel sauce and place back in the oven until fully cooked.
Make it your own way
- Swap the apples for pears, plums or another stone fruit
- Substitute hazelnuts and create a hazelnut cream, this would be great with plums
- Serve with extra warmed caramel sauce if you want to amp up the sweetness
- Can skip the almond cream but they won’t be as decadent and hardly worth it in my view
- Make one large tart instead of individual tartlets or make minis for petit fours
- Serve with cinnamon or white chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla bean
- Sprinkle with chopped toasted almonds (or hazelnuts) when serving
