Mini Fruit Tartlets with Mascarpone Filling

Monday, July 30, 2012

MiniFruitTartlets
Mini Fruit Tartlets with Mascarpone Filling

Okay, I'm writing this post during commercials while watching the Olympics. I'm one of those crazy Olympic watchers that walks into work completely sleep deprived everyday for 17 days. I love the Olympics!

Wedding Dessert Bar - The Food Librarian - July 2012
I made these mini fruit tarts for the wedding buffet earlier this month. Originally, I planned to fill them with lemon curd, but the curd didn't firm up enough for my liking (don't worry, we just ate the lemon curd later) so I improvised and made a mascarpone cream filling and topped it with fruit. I think that was even better! I'm going to make that from now on.

Wedding Dessert Bar - The Food Librarian - July 2012 
The tart dough is from Sweet Miniatures: The Art of Making Bite-Size Desserts by Flo Baker. This is a wonderful book with so many great ideas and hints for making small desserts. I picked up these mini tart tins at Sur la Table years ago....I haven't seen them since though. I think these from Amazon are pretty close. 

  Wedding Dessert Bar - The Food Librarian - July 2012 
Miniature Tartlet Pastry
From: Sweet Miniatures: The Art of Making Bite-Size Desserts

Makes 8 dozen round fluted miniature tartlet shells, 1 1/2 inch diameter

2 1/2 cups (350 grams) unsifted all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup (65 grams) sugar
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch slices
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Flo Baker has excellent instructions in her book...be sure to pick it up for full directions and hints.

1. Put flour, salt, sugar in food processor. Pulse a couple times to blend. Scatter butter slices on top, and pulse in one second intervals until mixture is like cornmeal.
2. Whisk egg and vanilla together. With motor on, pour egg mixture into tube. Process until it forms a ball (doesn't take very long!). Remove and press together until smooth.
3. Pinch about 1 teaspoon of dough (depends on the size of your tart shell) and roll into a ball. Drop into the tin, and press into tin. As Flo suggests, I pinch off the dough and roll all the balls, then press all the dough into the tins. I highly suggest watching TV while doing this as it is very assembly line.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Cool on rack. Gently squeeze them out of tins.

Flo says you keep unfilled shells in an airtight container for up to a 1 week. I prepped all the tins and froze them (with dough in the shell). The day before the wedding, I baked them from the frozen state...just added a few minutes to the baking time.

Mascarpone Cream Filling
8 ounce tub of mascarpone cream (I used one from Trader Joe's)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream, chilled

In a mixer with whisk attachment, whisk together the mascarpone cream and sugar until blended. Add the heavy cream and whisk together until desired consistency. It will be stiff. I used an off-set spatula to fill my little tartlet shells. Next time, I think I might put it into a piping bag and pipe the filling.

Assembly
Fill tart shell with mascarone cream filling.
Top with fresh fruit. I didn't use a glaze - just put strawberries and blueberries on top. If you want to use a glaze, heat some red currant jelly or strained apricot jam, and brush on top of the fruit.

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4 comments:

I'm At Home Baking said... [Reply to comment]

They look very yummy! I wish I could watch all the coverage I could of the Olympics but not able to living in Japan!

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

Yum! They look so fresh.

Lysa said... [Reply to comment]

Did you have trouble removing the tarts from the mini tart forms? Any tips to prevent tarts from sticking to pans?
Thank you for sharing all your wonderful recipes! I "bake and take" too - bake goodies and take them to work!

The Food Librarian said... [Reply to comment]

@Lysa Dear Lysa, I didn't have any trouble releasing the tarts. You just squeeze the thin metal very gently and the popped out. The recipe has a lot of butter in it so I used ungreased tart shells(per the recipe instructions).

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