Brown Sugar & Apple Pastries

This was a spur-of-the-moment dessert to welcome in the beginning of fall. Apples sautéed in butter with brown sugar create a lovely gooey topping for either vanilla ice cream or crispy puff pastry. Last spring I tried a recipe for Brown Sugar Apple Pastries in the Reader’s Quick Recipes section of Bon Appetit. The original recipe says to blend butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl and spread over the puff pastry before baking. But when I tried this, the mixture bubbled over as the pastry rose, coating my baking sheet more than the tops of the pastry. In my version, I add some extra butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon directly to the apples and skip the mess in the oven. I also cut its serving size from 6 to 2, perfect for you and yours tonight!

1 Apple (Fujis are our favorite)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 TBS. butter
some zest of a lemon
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 sheet puff pastry, divided into 2 rectangles

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake the puff pastry for about 15 minutes. If needed, deflate with a fork after 10 minutes and continue baking for another 5, until puffed up and flaky.

• In the meantime, peel, core, and cut the the apple into evenly-sized pieces.

• Melt the butter in a nonstick frying pan. When melted, add the apple and cook over medium heat until just beginning to brown.

• Add the brown sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and cinnamon and stir until the mixture thickens and the apples soften.

• Spoon apples over the puff pastry (or try ice cream too!) and drizzle any syrup that’s left in the pan.

• Pop open a bottle of sparkling wine and say sayonara to summer!