I saw a lovely recipe on elmundoeats for Strawberry Cheese Tarts and I thought i would like to make them. But rather than push pastry into tart tins I wanted to experiment with making some little cups by laying discs of pastry on an upturned muffin tray. So that is what I did for my version.
That made some nice little pastry cups, even though they were a little uneven as I didn’t position each disk perfectly centred. But the pastry was lovely and crisp but tender. Then it was easy to make a cream cheese filling to go on top of a little strawberry jam.
Although there are quite a few steps to this recipe it is not difficult at all. The little tarts are very tasty and perfect as a small dessert for afternoon tea, or some such.
I made a little decoration on the top of mine, which didn’t look too bad at all. But it is all about the taste and I think these tasted so very good indeed.
Ingredients:
for the pastry
- 60g(4tbsp+1 tsp) softened unsalted butter
- 40g(1.3 cup) icing sugar, sieved
- 1 medium egg yolk(large in USA)
- 130g(1 cup) plain flour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
for the filling:
- 150g(3/4 cup minus 1 tbsp) cream cheese at room temperature
- 22g(3 tbsp) icing sugar
- 1 medium egg(large in USA)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 45ml(3 tbsp) cream or milk
- 4 tsp strawberry jam
- pink and green colouring if desired, for decoration.
Method:
- Place the butter and icing sugar into a large bowl and cream together until combined.
- Add the vanilla extract and egg yolk and mix until combined.
- Add the flour, in three additions, carefully mixing until just combined.
- When the dough has come together turn out onto some plastic wrap and pull together with your hands.
- Wrap into the plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
- Roll the dough, between two sheets of plastic wrap, out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch(5 mm) and chill again for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/340F.
- Use a 3 inc(8 cm) scalloped cookie cutter to cut out 8 rounds, rolling the excess dough to make the full number.
- Chill again for 20 minutes while the oven is preheating.
- On an upturned muffin tin place each of the discs of pastry, centred as well as possible on the base of the muffin cups.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Leave the oven on as you make the filling.
- Place the cream cheese, icing sugar and cream into a bowl and whisk until fully combined.
- Add the egg and vanilla and whisk again until fully combined.
- Take about a tablespoon of the mixture into each of two small bowls and add some pink colour into one and green colour into the other. Then stir each to mix in.
- Place 1/2 teaspoon of jam into each pastry cup, in the centre and flatten a little.
- Spoon the cream cheese mixture equally into each cup until all used.
- Drip one spot of pink colour onto the top centre of each cup and then use a tooth pick to put 2 thin green lines below the pink drop.
- Drag a toothpick from above the pink, through it and through the green lines to make an image like a pink flower with green leave.
- Transfer the tarts to a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Chill in the fridge before serving.
Thanks very much.
These look amazing!! You did a great job!