Over the years I’ve developed several recipes for mini tarts that use the same easy dough for the crust. They’re kind of labor-intensive, but in the end you have adorable, single-serving treats that are prettier and more interesting than most cookies but can still be picked up and eaten without a plate or fork.
First take a look at the crust recipe, which is the same as for the savory mini-quiches. This dough recipe pops up all over the place, and it’s just great. You may think that it has too much cream cheese/butter in relation to the amount of flour, but it doesn’t. I have made a minor tweak to the amounts as originally written, since that recipe called for 3 ounces of cream cheese, a size that used to be sold individually, and therefore upped the flour a bit. These new amounts give you a slightly larger amount of dough to work with.
Debi's All-Purpose Cream Cheese Mini Quiche and Tart Pastry
You can use this dough as the pastry base for just about any filling you desire. Pressing the dough into mini muffin cups is a fussy, finicky process, and I've tried methods other than just using my thumbs, with various degrees of success. One idea, which i just gleaned from Food52, a totally great cooking site, is to use some sort of tamper on top of plastic wrap. Genius! I have a tamper, but I've never liked it much because it tends to stick to the dough, and it's a pain to dip the tamper into flour each time and doesn't work all that well. So I plan to try out this idea the next time I make a batch and will update this summary then.
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons butter or 1 stick, 4 oz, room temperature.
- 4 ounces cream cheese or 1/2 of a regular 8-oz. package, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- dash salt if using unsalted butter
Instructions
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Using a hand mixer, stand mixer or food processor, mix the ingredients together into a soft, moist dough.
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Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, maybe 30 minutes. This step will help make the dough less sticky. (But if I use the helpful hint above with the plastic wrap, chilling the dough may be counter productive, as softer dough will be easier to tamp.)
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Use your fingers to press a 1/2-ounce ball of dough into each mini-tart cup. Using that amount of dough per tartlet should give you 24, which is the standard amount per pan and the yield given for this recipe. I do use my digital scale, which takes very little extra time and insures that I get an even amount of dough for each shell. I have also started using some type of liner, either these tulip-shaped parchment ones or these white paper ones. (Be sure to note the larger size of the white ones--they're not the smallest size, 1 1/4", but 1 1/2".) Your life will be less fraught if you use some type of liner, as overfilling the shells by even a tiny bit makes them bubble up and over, and then you have a sticky mess.
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If you're using the shells with a filling that needs minimal or no baking, then you need to pre-bake the shells. Prick the bottoms and bake at 350 for 15 minutes, then check for doneness--they should be a nice golden brown. You may need to use your temper to gently press down the bottoms if they've gotten puffy, as otherwise you won't have as much room for the filling as you'd have with a flat bottom.
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If you're using a filling that needs to bake for the same amount of time as the shells, then of course you'll fill them first and then bake. Follow the directions for the individual filling recipe--you''ll probably need 25 minute at 350.
Tiny Tim Cranberry Tarts
These are a Christmas institution as far as I'm concerned. I got the recipe out of the Washington Post about a decade ago and have been making them ever since. They're a little finicky but basically easy—very different and very pretty. Easy for people to eat, too, as they’re finger food. The recipe seems to be all over the place on the web, so I guess it doesn't belong to anyone in particular. There's been one problem with it in that the tarts have tended to stick to the pan, although I haven't had this problem with the other fillings I list. So I really recommend using mini muffin liners, making sure that they're the 1 1/2" size and not the 1 1/4" size. Sugar content for these is pretty low because they're so small. My best guess is that they have 6 grams per tart, which surprised me. So you could, in theory, have four of these and not go over 25 grams. But that's assuming that you're not loading up your plate at a party with lots of other treats. Everything counts! The recipe says, “Never be tempted to put more than three cranberries in each one cup; one berry too many can force a tiny fruit eruption. For some reason, this recipe does not work well in regular-size muffin tins or as a large tart.” So you will need to get a mini-muffin pan—it will have 24 cups, and will work best if it’s nonstick. (Actually, you need to buy several pans, as I discuss below. But if my saying that scares you off of this recipe, just buy one for now.)
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons softened butter
- 1 tsp . vanilla
- ½ cup walnuts finely chopped
- 72 fresh or frozen cranberries more if very small
Instructions
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Make pastry shells from the recipe on this page and preheat your oven to 350. There's no need to pre-bake the shells for this recipe.
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Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the egg, sugar, butter and vanilla, mixing well. Stir in the nuts. Place 3 cranberries in each cup and spread some of the nut mixture over the cranberries, filling each cup so that the cranberries are covered.
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YET ANOTHER NOTE: I have found from making this recipe many, many times that it’s best not to overfill the cups with the egg/sugar mixture. The filling will bubble up and spread outside the crust, and you’ll have a mess. The recipe actually makes a little bit too much of the filling, and it’s tempting to try to use it all up on the 24 tarts, but don’t do it! There’s no real way you can make less filling, since it calls for one egg. Yet another reason to make my 96-tart version.
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Bake for 25 minutes, until well browned. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool slightly. Run the tip of a knife around the edge of each tart to loosen, then slip the tarts out of the pan. If you did use the parchment paper rounds, peel those off (obviously). They come off very easily.
Recipe Notes
Variation: You can use chopped apples instead of cranberries, adding some cinnamon or apple pie spice to the filling mixture. Bake for the same amount of time. I'm not posting this as a whole separate recipe since everything else remains the same.
Miniature Pecan Pies (Pecan Tassies)
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar, dark or light
- 2 tablespoons butter at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup chopped pecans not toasted
Instructions
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Make the pastry for these from the recipe on this page. You do not need to pre-bake the shells.
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Combine the egg, brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract and pecans in a medium bowl until well mixed. Fill each dough shell no more than 2/3 full. (Be sure NOT to overfill, as the filling will bubble up over the edges and make a fine mess. You will probably have some filling left over, but you can't cut down on the amounts for a single batch because of the egg. If you're making multiple batches of these tarts then make one less multiple of the filling than you do of the crust.) Bake for 25 minutes or until the tops are golden. Transfer the pans to a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes, then run a sharp knife around the outside edges of the tassies to release them from the pans. If you do have an overflow, be sure to run the knife around the edges right away when they come out of the oven but then wait to actually remove them until they've cooled.
Miniature Lemon Tarts
I got this recipe for the filling years ago from a sample issue of the magazine Cuisine at Home. It's a pretty standard recipe, though, and it's meant to be used in a large tart. One recipe of this is going to make enough for at least 72 tarts, so I have cut the filling amounts to fit with my standard crust recipe. Happily, the recipe was very easy to divide by three, and it's obviously easy to multiply from the small amount I list. As I've said with the other miniature tarts recipes, though, it's not really worth making these unless you make a lot. I usually put a strawberry slice on top of each, although a blueberry or two also works well. These are so pretty for some kind of spring event, such as a tea or an Easter dinner. It's necessary to pre-bake the crusts, by the way, for this particular recipe, because the filled tarts are baked so briefly and there wouldn't be a chance for the crust to brown.
Ingredients
- 1 recipe cream cheese pastry listed above, pressed into mini-muffin tins and baked at 3500 for 10 minutes or so, until lightly browned
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice Recipe says "fresh lemon juice" but of course I didn't do that.*
- 3/4 tsp lemon zest or several drops of lemon oil, If you don't use fresh lemon juice you won't have zest. I use lemon oil instead, which is pressed from zest and is very strong. Don't use more than a couple of drops.*
- 2 tablespoons butter or 1/4 stick
Instructions
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Whisk the first five ingredients together in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. then add the butter, cubed. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until filling thickens but is still pourable. The best tool for stirring this is a heatproof spatula or a flat whisk, which allows you to get into the very edges of the bottom and therefore prevent you from having scrambled eggs there. Cook to 160 degrees, checking periodically with your instant-read thermometer. Spoon or scoop a small amount into each pre-baked tartlet shell and bake at 325 degrees for about 5 minutes. Let cool and then chill.
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Add toppings if desired: strawberry slices, blueberries, a raspberry--and brush some melted jelly over the top, the classic choice being currant jelly. But you can use whatever you have on hand. If it's jam, I'd advise straining it to remove seeds and pulp before you brush it on; otherwise, you'll have this blobby stuff on top of the fruit. Currant or apple jelly won't require straining, and it's easy to keep on hand for just such uses; you don't use very much. You can also put a little pouf of whipped cream on these or just sift powdered sugar over them..
Recipe Notes
*I make a point of saying that I think bottled citrus juices are perfectly acceptable and that I use them all the time. I always have lemon and lime juice in the fridge, and I also have citrus oils on hand to use in the place of zest. These oils come in little tiny bottles and are only available online; I buy the Boyajian brand through Amazon. They may seem expensive but in reality you use so little at a time that you won't need to replenish your supply for quite awhile.
Strawberry Cream Mini Tarts
This filling is no-bake and very easy, a nice alternative to the baked fillings above. You could actually use any fruit on the top that you like, so feel free to do so. I call for strawberries because this version is drawn from a recipe for a strawberry cream pie.
Ingredients
- 4 oz. cream cheese or 1/2 of an 8-ounce package
- 1/2 cup sugar original recipe says "superfine"
- 1 cup heavy cream whipped until it holds soft peaks
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Garnish:
- raspberries or sliced strawberries
- 1/2 cup currant jelly
Instructions
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Make the pastry shells using the recipe on this page. Bake thoroughly, at least 15 minutes at 350. Let cool before filling.
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After whipping the cream then whip in the cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice.
To assemble the tarts:
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Scoop a rounded tablespoon of the filling into each tart shell. You may be able to get more than that in. Since the filling is fairly stiff, it can be mounded up quite a bit. Then place a raspberry or strawberry slice on each and brush with the currant jelly that you've microwaved briefly (10-15 seconds).
Recipe Notes
Recipe Notes Since this filling contains dairy you'll have to refrigerate the tarts before serving.
Note on all of the above: If you’re an independent-minded soul and you’d like maximum flexibility and choice in your crust and your fillings, here’s an excellent article from the monster cooking blog Food52 that gives general guidelines for a whole range of options: