Caramel Apple Puff Pastries

Like toaster strudel, but way better.

Hi Bakers!

Hosting overnight guests this season or just want to knock your own socks off with a superior morning treat? These Apple Toaster Strudels are for you!

When it came to ‘90s convenient breakfasts, I was definitely team Toaster Strudel versus PopTart. Remember those icing squeeze packets to add after toasting? How that was proper fuel for my preteen years, I’ll never know. Jump into the present though, and the questionable “flaky” crust isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Enter homemade caramel apple puff pastries. With layer upon crispy layer of crust, brown sugar apple filling, and a drizzle of salted caramel, these are what breakfast pastry dreams are made of.

On Homemade Puff Pastry…

Navigating the grocery store with my 18 month old is always a laborious task- one requiring quick reflexes and distraction skills. But when I caught sight of the price of frozen puff pastry, I stopped the cart in its tracks - baby limbs windmilling about.

$18 for puff pastry!? That’s it - let’s learn how to make our own. 

Classic French puff pastry, or pâte feuilletée, is made from laminating butter in a pastry dough, then folding repeatedly to create hundreds of layers. For us home cooks, using grated frozen butter to create a rough puff pastry is a totally doable game changer.

Will we get hundreds of flaky layers using this more streamlined version? Probably not, but it will be pretty close and much more approachable and less time consuming. I mean, just look at all those thin sheets of pastry on these apple hand pies here!!

I used a slightly different method for the Spiced Palmiers during last year’s Cookie Week. This time, we are using grated frozen butter sandwiched between pastry dough that’s more akin to the butter block used in the classic version. 

On Freezing…

For the ultimate toaster strudel-like experience, you probably won’t want to make these from scratch the same morning as serving. Thankfully, the puff pastry can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or the freezer for 3 to 6 months.

In true convenient breakfast fashion, make and assemble the pastries up until baking (do not egg wash), and store in the freezer. Bake from frozen, brushing with the egg wash before heading into the oven. You will need to add a few extra minutes of baking time.