It's getting close to that time of year when the summer's heat is replaced with the crisp air of Autumn and the leaves on the trees start changing colors. I just love the Fall season! To me, it's the season that, along with being quite colorful, is also the most fragrant.
It is especially aromatic around Thanksgiving, when the entire house is festooned with the tantalizing aromas coming from the kitchen: the turkey roasting in the oven, the bread just freshly baked, the pumpkin pies cooling on the counter. And then there's the scent of spices and baked apples, in an apple crisp, apple pie, or....
Apple roses! What a delightful dessert for Autumn! I have a fond childhood memory of going to pick apples at an apple orchard during the Fall season. That experience was about as idyllic as it could get. The way I remember, the mode of travel to the orchard was on a wooden flatbed trailer pulled by a tractor. We'd climb onto the back of the trailer and sit with our legs dangling off the edge. As the tractor slowly chugged along the dusty, one-lane dirt road leading to the grove of apple trees, our legs would brush the tall weeds growing in the middle of the road. As those apple trees drew closer, we'd tighten our grip on the bushel baskets we were holding in our laps, in anticipation of filling them to the brim with some bright red apples!
Nowadays, the supplier of apples in our area is a city grocery store. Instead of having to reach up to pluck an apple from a branch, I just pick out a few in the produce department, place them in my cart, and go through the checkout stand. That process may be more convenient but it isn't nearly as memorable. Still, regardless of how I acquire the apples, the end result will be the same. This lusciously sweet fruit will be sliced, sprinkled with spices, rolled up in a pastry, and placed in the oven. As the apple roses bake and their petals unfurl, the mouthwatering fragrance permeating throughout the house will drive the curiosity of my family to follow their noses to the origin of that smell. When the timer rings, signaling that the apple roses are done, I will pull them out of the oven, dust them with some powdered sugar, and this Autumn dessert will be gobbled up in less time than it took to bake it. When the last bite has been consumed, my family will all decree that I cannot wait a whole year to make apple roses again.
Below is a video on how to make the pastry apple roses. It's a video put out by someone else but one I thought gave a good description on how to make the roses: