Eat Dessert First: Mini Apple Pies

So welcome to my new series! Last time I baked it was cupcakes and that got me thinking about how much I enjoy baking. And we sure do love desserts here. So I have decided to try my hand at more baking. I know I make good cookies. I know I make good chocolate cupcakes but why not try a few more new things. So I decided to start this series. It definitely will not be as regular as 'How to Bake Water' because if I made this series regular than we would weight 500 pounds. So this might be weekly. Maybe every two weeks. Not sure yet. We're all learning here and so just bare with me as I figured it all out.

Well, other than cupcakes my first real adventure began today. I realize the irony of how much I really didn't want to cook lunch today but then I willingly jumped into some baking. That's just the way I roll I guess. I found a recipe for Mini Apple Pies and they looked delicious. My favorite dessert is definitely apple pie. Specifically my mom's apple pie. It's so delicious! So I thought this might be a good start.

And let me just say up front that this my first attempt at anything new in the world of baking. And it didn't go great. But I learned. So this way the next time I try it, I can do it differently and improve.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 pkg. (14.1 oz) refrigerated pizza crust
3 tbsp. melted butter, divided
2 medium tart apples, each cut into 8 wedges

Directions:
In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon, set aside 1 tbsp.

On a lightly floured surface, unroll the pastry. Brush with 2 tbsp melted butter, sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture.

Cut each sheet into 8 one-inch strips, about 8-inches long. Wrap one strip around each apple wedge, placing sugared side of pastry against apple.

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Brush tops with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar mixture.

Bake at 435 degrees for 13-15 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

A few notes:
*I had a major oops and learned an important lesson: Read the instructions carefully. I misread pizza crust for pie crust so that's what I got. Pie crust is a lot flakier so doesn't really work as well. Plus, later when you are trying to cut them into the strips it is much harder because you have round forms instead of square. It almost seems funny now because I was just saying the other day how I don't understand why pizza crust is always square. In this case, it would have worked perfectly.

*Another oddity about this baking project (one which is not really bad but more just funny). I don't have a pastry brush (Christmas stocking, anyone?). So as a substitute Rob dug through his grilling stuff and pulled out a brush. It worked pretty well but the handle is super long because it was for grilling. It works just the same but a small one would be easier to handle.

*We learned another important lesson when we were sprinkle the sugar mixture on wrapped apples: Don't do it the way we did! It would have been much better to brush the tops and sprinkle on the sugar then put it on the parchment paper. Because it made a mess of the sugar mixture all around the apple slices and when it was put in the oven it burnt.

The sugar mixture burnt around and under each apple wedge. It basically made it impossible to get off without the paper being stuck to it or without burning the bottom of the pastry. We learned quite a bit from this adventure. Rob helped me get them off the paper and into a container and they were fairly good but if they were burnt than that's all you can taste. I think these would be delicious done the right way.

So several lessons were learned. Not exactly a positive way to start out the new series but this is all about learning and trying, right? It was a bit disheartening but I will try again. Maybe not this the next time but sometime I will make these again and make my slight adjustments.

I hope you enjoy this series as much as we are going to enjoy eating it!