A Set of Sweet Mini Tart Variations

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.

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Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake Extravaganza

Strawberry muffins on cupcake standMy dear friend Cindy took a picture of the final product under less-than-optimum circumstances in the low light of the wedding reception.  Thank you, Cindy!  As usual I wasn’t prepared to take pictures and had left my camera in the car.

I made these for the daughter of a dear friend, and I have to say that they were very successful.  Every single one of the 96 I made disappeared, and I got lots of compliments. Can’t recommend them highly enough. They’re not very hard and can be made in advance and frozen excluding the strawberries and glaze. The actual filling is a very basic plain cheesecake mixture; the toppings make them special. You can do even more with decorating them if you want to.

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Easy, Rich Chocolate Cupcakes

rich chocolate cupcakes

Pretty nice-looking cupcake, isn’t it?  Beautifully domed, perfectly sized for the muffin tin cup.  And the inside was moist and delicious, in spite of the fact that I overbaked it a bit.  (Note to self:  Be sure to use the oven timer that measures minutes and seconds, not hours and minutes, when baking something that requires minutes.  If I hadn’t realized at about the 20-minute mark that I’d set the wrong timer, the above would be a picture of a lump of chocolate coal.  As it was, they probably baked about five minutes more than necessary.)  I did frost these with an unbelievably delicious chocolate buttercream, but I’ll be discussing that recipe in a later post.

Below are are two comparison shots of the cupcakes this week and the ones last week.

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Pear Crumb Pie

pear crumb pieI’m not indulging in many desserts these days, but this one isn’t all that sugar-heavy, clocking in at 1 cup of sugar for the entire recipe. That’s 2 tablespoons of sugar per serving if you cut the pie into 8 slices, or 24 grams total. The goal is to keep daily added sugar consumption below 25 grams, or 100 calories. So you could have a regular-size slice and not go over your allowance for the day, as long as that’s all the added sugar you eat! Ice cream or sweetened whipped cream would be out as toppings, but unsweetened cream, whipped or unwhipped, would be fine.

To access the recipe, follow this link:

Pear Crumb Pie

Lava You Don’t Get from a Volcano

chocolate lava cake a la modeHere’s a shot of one of the chocolate lava cakes I made for my brother-in-law’s birthday party.  I think the last time I made these was for the same occasion, two years ago.  Gideon has said periodically since then that I should make them again, and my answer has always been, “I’ll make them for Ed’s birthday.”  So here they are.  I made some changes from the recipe I found online, and this is now a pretty standard recipe anyway. I did find it interesting that, as for a number of recipes, the innovation came about because of a mistake. Its originator, chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, apparently pulled a chocolate cake out of the oven too soon and realized that its underbaked warm center was actually an asset. Then he must have developed the individual cakes that are usual today. A full-sized version would be very messy to serve.

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Another Unusual Cheesecake

White chocolate cheesecake with ginger I’ve been serving this cheesecake for many years, having gotten the original recipe from the old Gourmet magazine. (I think.)  It’s very unusual, with a flavor combination of white chocolate and ginger that’s just delicious. As with any good cheesecake it’s very rich, but that richness means that a little goes a long way. Dividing it up into muffin cups is a great portion control mechanism. If you eat only one you’ll be well within the 25-gram added-sugar limit for one day. The picture, however, is of a leftover portion baked in a small pie plate.

Get the recipe here: “Another Unusual Cheesecake

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Small Cheesecakes with a Great Flavor Combination

Four chocolate pumpkin cheesecake cupcakesA number of years ago I was asked to do the rehearsal dinner for a gluten-intolerant bride.  I wanted to make a dessert that she could eat, and I was told that she liked chocolate and pumpkin.  Hmmm.  I hadn’t ever really thought of that flavor combination, but it sounded pretty good.  So I went online to see what ideas were out there, and I came up with a pumpkin-chocolate pie, basically a two-layer cheesecake baked as a pie.  It had a crumb crust, which I couldn’t use, so I needed a way to make it easy to slice and eat without one.  That’s how I came up with the idea of making it in muffin cups, and I called them “timbales.”  Sounded pretty classy, and they were a great hit.  Awhile after the dinner we were told that what the bride actually liked was raw pumpkin from the can mixed with chocolate chips!  (I could have saved myself a lot of work by just serving a bowlful of that combination.)  You’ll note that the picture doesn’t have the muffin liners, and that the timbales look a bit messy.  That’s because I discovered at 6:15 AM that I didn’t have any liners. They are definitely easier and neater with the liners.  Since I’m not making these gluten-free any more, I’ve added the chocolate-graham-cracker crust.

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A Most Unusual Apple Dessert

I first got this recipe from some magazine or other in an article about a dinner planned by Julia Child.  When I went online to check the source I found the exact same thing on the Food Network website by some other chef, so I guess it doesn’t belong to any one person.  I have changed the assembly to make it easier, as I have very little patience with doing complicated things just for looks.  It’s called “Gateau Mont St. Michel” because it’s supposed to be a “mountain” of crepes, apples and almond cream that’s then cut into wedges to serve.  But that’s just too much work.  So here’s my version, which I have titled:

Apple/Almond Lasagna

There is no question that this recipe is a lot of work. It's definitely a special-occasion dessert and it's also very unusual. I really, really like it, and it's not terribly sweet. My best estimate of the sugar content for a serving of 1/12 of the recipe is 5 teaspoons or 25 grams, which would equal the daily limit of 100 grams of added sugar. The dish can be prepared ahead, and each step can be prepared separately.
Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Keyword apples, almond, crepes
Servings 12 at least, so approx. 20 grams of sugar per serving
Author Debi Simons

Ingredients

Crepes:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup each milk and water
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/8 tsp . salt
  • 5 tablespoons melted butter
  • 3 tablespoons orange liquer, rum, cognac, or orange juice (I just use the orange juice)

Burnt-Almond Cream (that's what the recipe calls this, but really, you don't want to burn the almonds! Just toast them.):

  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 1/3 cups toasted almonds ground with the sugar in a food processor.
  • 1 stick butter at room temperature
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp . almond extract
  • 1/2 tsp . vanilla
  • 3 tablespoons dark rum optional
  • Pinch salt

The apples:

  • 12 large apples such as Golden Delicious or Granny Smith I use Granny Smith
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter or 1 stick

Instructions

Cooking the crepes:

  1. Cook crepes using 2-3 batter for each. Since you don' have to worry too much about getting them all the same size or shape you can just make them on your big griddle that you use for regular pancakes. They can be made ahead, stacked together, and put in a plastic bag.

Preparing the Burnt-Almond Cream:

  1. The original recipe says to use blanched almonds, and it would be easier to see how toasted they are without the skins, but I always end up using the whole natural almonds that I have on hand from Costco. More fiber that way! Toast the almonds spread out on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for 5-10 minutes. Watch them carefully and take them out as soon as you start smelling them. Let them cool before you grind them up. Grinding them with the sugar keeps them from turning into almond butter.
  2. Once you've ground together the almonds and sugar, add the rest of the ingredients and process until well combined. It'll be kind of thick and gloppy.

Preparing the apples:

  1. Slice the apples and spread them in a buttered jelly-roll or roasting pan. Bake for 20 minutes or so in a 400-degree oven, tossing up several times, until tender. The original recipe says to peel the apples but I don't think that's necessary.

Assembling and baking the gateau:

  1. Spray a 9x12 glass baking pan with cooking spray and then make layers of crepes, apples and almond cream, starting with crepes and then going from there. You're supposed to end with apples, but it doesn't really matter. This can be completely assembled ahead of time and refrigerated. Try to plan things so that you can take it out of the fridge an hour ahead of time and it won't be icy cold when you put it in the oven. If you do that, then it only needs about half an hour at 350 degrees. Not a bad idea to use your trusty instant-read thermometer to test the middle and make sure it reads 160.

Recipe Notes

It works well to shove this into the oven when you start dinner and let it bake while you're eating, and then you can serve it hot, but warm or room temp is fine, too. I wouldn't serve it cold. Heavy cream poured over it is nice but not necessary.