Mini Brie and Apple Tarts

Remove brie rind for smoother melting. Tart apples balance the rich cheese better than sweet. Don't overfill the pastry cups. The honey should be drizzled while tarts are warm so it soaks in slightly.

This little tart rests on two of food history's most thoroughly documented ingredients. Brie has been made in the Seine-et-Marne region east of Paris since at least the 8th century: the Frankish monk and historian Charlemagne is recorded as having encountered and praised the cheese in 774 AD at Brie-en-Brie. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the French statesman Talleyrand entered Brie into a tasting competition against cheeses from across Europe; it won, earning the title "King of Cheeses" that remains attached to it today. Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun received French AOC designation in 1980, protecting their production methods and origin. The apples in this tart carry an equally long story. Genetic studies identify the primary progenitor of the cultivated apple as Malus sieversii, a wild species still growing in the Tian Shan mountain forests of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Silk Road carried apple cultivation westward into Persia, Greece, and Rome, and European colonists brought grafted apple varieties to North America in the 17th century. Puff pastry — the third element in these tarts — has its earliest clear published recipe in François Pierre La Varenne's Le Cuisinier François (1651), the foundational text of classical French cuisine. Marie-Antoine Carême, who dominated Parisian pastry in the early 19th century, codified and popularised puff pastry applications throughout Europe. The combination of brie, apple, and pastry in a warm bite-sized tart is a modern party-food interpretation of the French fromage course tradition, in which ripe cheese served alongside fruit has concluded meals in France for centuries.