Baked Cinnamon Apple Roses Recipe

Have you ever stumbled across food that appeared to be just too beautiful to eat? One that you couldn't fathom taking a bite out of? Decadent tiered cakes adorned with edible diamonds and delicate marzipan flowers in an array of colors appear as a work of art and are almost sinful to slice into and eat. Unless you're a professional baker or cake decorator, you may wonder just how visually stunning desserts are created. Well, wonder no more.

Recipe developer Autumn LeAnn also happens to be one of those bakers who create the most amazing-looking and tasting desserts. She owns Autumn's Sweet Shoppe, a small-batch bakery based in Columbus, Ohio, and crafted a recipe for baked cinnamon apple roses that are simply stunning, not to mention they taste fantastic.

"These apple roses are as delicious as they are beautiful! They're almost like mini apple pies, perfectly sweet and the perfect serving size," Autumn LeAnn says. Learn her technique for making this dessert, and prepare to wow your guests over the holiday season or just because.

Most of the ingredients for this batch of succulent sweets are likely hanging around the house, with the exception of the apples, unless your fruit bowl has been filled recently. You'll need two sticks of unsalted butter. Flour proves to be an important part of this recipe, as does salt, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, ground cinnamon, and ice water. The star of the show, Fuji apples, are the most important part, and you'll need three to four of them, depending on how big they are.

Fuji apples are an incredibly common type of fruit with a sweet taste. When picking the Fuji apples from the bin, make sure they don't have any soft spots or brown spots on them, and check for blemishes like worm holes. Select apples that are firm, smooth, and brightly colored.

This recipe may take some time to throw together, but trust us, it'll be worth it in the end. Autumn LeAnn recommends measuring out all of the ingredients first so you keep a steady preparation pace when working in the kitchen. Take a stick and a half of cold butter, and cut it into small cubes measuring approximately half an inch in size.

Take out a bowl and mix together two cups of all purpose flour, half of a teaspoon of salt, one and a half tablespoons of granulated sugar, and the cubed butter. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together, squishing the butter into smaller flakey bits. LeAnn said, "When you're finished, you should still be able to see small bits of butter."

Use half a cup of ice water in the next step. Slowly add the ice water to the dough a tiny bit at a time. Continually mix the dough with your hands until just combined, Autumn LeAnn explained, to where you still can see small bits of butter.

"Using ice water helps prevent the butter pieces in the dough from melting down too much and helps to produce a flakier dough," she says. "It's important to add the water slowly because the amount of water you will need to use varies from kitchen to kitchen depending on humidity level. Adding the water slowly instead of all at once helps prevents the dough from becoming too watery."

Take the buttery dough and gently shape it into a rectangle. Refrigerate the dough for an hour. Once 30 minutes has passed, turn your attention to the Fuji apples. Cut them in half through the core, and then use a spoon to scrape out the core. Cut the apple halves into very thin slices. "I used a mandoline slicer for mine to ensure my slices were even and thin," Autumn LeAnn advised.

In case you haven't used one yet during your adventures in the kitchen, a mandoline slicer consists of a flat surface fitted with a sharp blade that enables you to slice fruits like the apple and veggies thinly, precisely, quickly, and safely. Uniform slices are best attained this way.

Boil the sliced apples for approximately five minutes, then remove from the water and pat dry with a towel.

Melt the remaining half a stick of butter, then add a quarter of a cup of brown sugar and half of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and mix until combined. Set aside and take the dough out of the refrigerator. Lightly flour a work surface and roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it resembles a large flat rectangle big enough to cut nine large strips measuring approximately 12 inches long and an inch and a half wide. 

It's best to use a pizza cutter or knife for cutting the strips. Once that's done, preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gently spread the brown sugar mixture across one side of each strip of dough, then layer the thin apple slices across it. "Make sure to add enough apple slices to each piece of pastry to give it enough petals, but be careful not to add too many, as it may not fit in the cupcake pan when you roll it up. The edges of the apple slices should overlap on the pastry, but not very much," Autumn LeAnn told us.

Carefully roll up the dough with the apples inside into a rose shape, and insert it into a cupcake tin. You can use beautiful cupcake liners sprayed with non-stick spray for an easier clean-up, or you can simply place them directly into the cupcake tin if you'd rather. Be sure to spray the cupcake liners with non-stick spray, or the dough will stick to the cupcake liner and ruin your masterpiece.

The apples should easily roll up inside the dough because they've been boiled, which makes them more pliable. Boiling cooks and softens the apples without drying them out and helps them retain their flavor. Bake the apple roses for 45 minutes and allow them to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!