Apple and Pâté Rose Tartlets

Recipe and photos by Lily Morello

Featuring spiced apples, truffled turkey and chicken pâté, and asiago cheese, these pretty tartlets are like a whole festive feast rolled into one, with a buttery flaky phyllo pastry to hold it all together. They’re surprisingly easy to make for how much of a visual impact they provide, which means they’re perfect to act as an edible bouquet at winter gatherings.

Ingredients:

2 cups cranberry juice
1 cup water
1 stick cinnamon
8-10 cloves
8-10 cardamom pods
2-3 star anise
3 apples, halved, cored, and slices into very thin slices
18 sheets phyllo or filo dough, thawed and brought to room temp
1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, melted
1 1/8 cup asiago cheese, finely grated
1 package (8 oz) Mousse de Périgord

Procedure:

Preparation: If desired, bundle the spices in a mulling sachet for easy extraction. Combine cranberry juice, water, and spices in a wide pot and simmer on low until your kitchen is fragrant, about 5–10 minutes. Add apple slices and allow to poach just until the slices are no longer brittle/rigid, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. (You may wish to work in batches to poach the slices more evenly.) Remove apple slices and place on a plate or tray, then pat away excess liquid.

Use a pastry brush to brush melted butter inside 18 muffin tins.

Remove the layer of aspic from the top of the pâté and divide the pâté into 18 portions.

Place a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Assemble each tart:

Place 1 sheet of phyllo vertically on your work surface, then immediately cover the rest with a damp towel.
Brush a tin layer of melted butter onto the sheet of phyllo.
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of asiago along the bottom edge of the sheet.
Fold the bottom edge up by 2 inches. Continue rolling and folding the whole sheet until you are left with a 2-inch strip of folded dough.
Spread one portion of the pâté across the strip of dough.
Place an apple slice over the pâté so that most of the slice is overlapping the phyllo, with only a little sticking out over the top. Continue to place apple slices, with each new slice overlapping half of the width of the previous slice; you will need about 10–12 slices to go across the strip of phyllo.
Fold the strip of phyllo up lengthwise you now have a 1-inch strip of dough with the pâté and apple slices contained within the fold.
Roll the strip into a tight spiral and place in one of the buttered muffin tins.

Repeat the assembly steps for the rest of the tarts.

Bake: Bake the tarts at 400°F for 25 minutes. Check the tarts at the 20-minute mark; if the edges of the apples are starting to burn, cover with foil for the remaining bake time. Tarts can be removed immediately from the muffin tin.

Notes from the author:

These are perfect to make for a new year’s eve soiree because they are easy to pick up and eat, but they also taste fulfilling. Sometimes I feel like the snacky food served at parties is impossible to get full on but the combination of the cheesy pastry and the pâté here makes for a bite with just the right amount of heft. As a bonus from making this recipe for a party, you’ll have leftover mulled cranberry juice that would be a lovely touch for making a pretty drink to toast to at midnight.

In this recipe, Three Little Pigs Mousse de Périgord acts as the main filling for the mini tarts. It’s a creamy-textured mousse of chicken liver and turkey liver, flavored with sherry and generously flecked with black truffles that will surely impress your holiday guests. If you are truffle-obsessed like I am, you’ll also go heart-eyed over all the truffle shavings you’ll see right when you peel open the packaging. The smooth texture makes it easy to spread and therefore easy to work with alongside the paper-thin and delicate phyllo pastry.

Preparing the Phyllo Dough to Make this Recipe:

Why phyllo dough? I’ve seen other apple rosette tart recipes that use puff pastry or pie dough but I have found that phyllo (also spelled filo) works so much better. There’s obviously a lot of moisture in the apple slices, especially after they get poached in mulled cranberry juice. And the lovely mousse pâté is quite a “wet” filling as well. These things can definitely fight against the goal of a crisp pastry bottom, and you may even run the risk of burning the delicate apple “petals” of your rosettes before you’ve cooked your pastry through. Puff pastry and pie dough also have to be kept as cold as possible in order to bake up nicely.

Phyllo (or filo), on the other hand, is paper-thin and super forgiving, making it a great choice for if you want to keep things low-stress when you're making these as part of a finger foods spread for your holiday gathering. You can find it in the frozen section at most supermarkets and once it is thawed, it can really sit out all day on your kitchen counter until you are ready to assemble these tarts. It bakes quickly since it is so thin, and you don’t have to worry about it getting sogged up by the delicious ingredients that you’re rolling within.

I remember the first time I worked with store-bought frozen phyllo dough; I did get frustrated and put-off from using it, just because it was so delicate and easy to tear. But since then, I have learned how to make working with it a breeze! Here are some tips based on what I’ve learned, so that you can skip straight to phyllo tart success:

Make sure the dough is completely defrosted and thawed. Move the dough from the freezer to the fridge the night before, then take the box out in the morning and leave it on your counter for at least an hour (or longer).
Before opening up the packaging, prepare a space for holding your phyllo sheets. The paper-thin dough will try to dry out and become brittle at the first chance you give it, so set up a workspace that prevents this from happening. Establish a clean, flat space that is big enough for the sheets to lie flat (either a clean countertop or cutting board) and place a damp tea towel over it. Prepare a second damp tea towel to go over the pastry dough. When you are ready to make the recipe, take out the phyllo dough and unroll it onto the first damp towel and immediately place the second one on top.
Be sure to only take one sheet at a time, and immediately cover the rest of the unused dough with the damp towel.
Remember that tears are no big deal! This recipe involves folding each sheet of phyllo on itself several times, then rolling it into a tight spiral. A missing corner or a tear here and there will go completely unnoticed when the tarts are all baked and crispy.

Now that you are an expert at working with phyllo dough, here is some info about the other ingredients that you’ll be tucking inside it.

Notes About the Ingredients for Apple and Pâté Rose Tarts:

Phyllo dough: Get this from the frozen section of the grocery store. Be sure to completely thaw and bring to room temp before using.
Melted butter: Using a pastry brush to brush a layer of melted butter onto each sheet of phyllo will keep the dough from cracking while you are working with it and help it bake to a satisfyingly crisp, flakey crust. I used salted butter to bring some extra flavor to the pastry.
Cranberry juice: Look for 100% cranberry juice, not cranberry cocktail which can be too sugary. Poaching the apple slices very briefly in mulled cranberry juice serves several purposes—it dyes the apples a beautiful rosy red color, softens them so they are easy to roll into rosettes, and infuses them with a subtle hint of festive spices.
Mulling spices: I infused my cranberry juice with a medley of spices that immediately get me in a cozy mood through the fall and winter. I used whole cardamom pods, cloves, a cinnamon stick, and star anise. Any spices that are typically used for mulled wine or cider would do here. Just be sure to use whole spices that are easy to separate out from the cranberry juice and won’t leave any gritty residue on the apples.
Apples: I recommend selecting a variety of apple that is crisp and has a rounded shape, like the sugar bee apples I used here. Use a mandoline to slice them into thin, even slices.
Pâté: The rich flavor of Three Little Pigs Mousse de Périgord acts as the savory filling for these handheld tarts. Remove the layer of aspic on top before spreading the pâté onto the phyllo.
Cheese: A little sprinkle of cheese tucked into the folds of pastry adds another delicious savory note to these tartlets. I used asiago because I love the flavor when combined with flakey pastry. You could use any gratable cheese (pecorino romano, or gruyere would also be good options).

Repurposing the Poaching Liquid:

After making these tarts, you’ll be left with a kitchen that smells like the holiday season and a pot of mulled cranberry juice. Add sugar to taste and drink warm as a cozy alternative to mulled apple cider, or allow the mixture to cool completely and add to sparkling wine for a pretty pink drink for festive toasting.