Tarts and Tunes

I've been wanting to make Mini Fruit Tarts since the end of April when the caterer at the Silent Auction for Friday's Kids made them. I think they are cute, tasty and well when I see them I'm just impressed. But I didn't have a mini muffin pan and didn't take the time to get one, but Cassie and Allen got me one for a multi-occasion present and I decided to make them for Celebration of Life Day.

For the crust I referenced a recipe from allrecipes.com.

2 (8 ounce) packages of Cream Cheese

2 cups of Butter 

4 1/2 cups of flour

First beat the cream cheese and butter together in a large bowl until smooth and fluffy. Then slowly mix in flour. (I tried doing this with an electric hand mixer...fail. I just used my hands but a stand mix (kitchenaid) would work) 

This time I divided the dough into 4 sections and then made 18 little balls of dough from each section. In the original recipe it says to press each ball into the pastry pan to form a pastry cup, this also did not work out so well.

I couldn't really fit any filling in them

So the next batch I took all of the balls and rolled them out into mini pie crusts. (If I do this again, which I will eventually, I would just roll all of the dough out and use a circle cookie cutter--quality control). I then put the dough in each tin like a pie crust, they turned out better but I still need to work on making them more aesthetically pleasing.

For the filling I used a recipe from cooks.com because I wanted a lemon custard filling rather that the strawberry jello filling from the other recipe. 

3/4 c. sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch
3/4 c. water
1 slightly beaten egg yolk
3 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 tbsp. butter

In a saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch, and dash of salt. Add water, egg yolk, and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Remove form heat; add lemon peel and butter. Makes 1 1/2 cups. I doubled this recipe and it filled 2/3 of my shells, which was ok because my first batch of shells didn't turn out, but to fill all of the shells, it would be best to triple the recipe. 

 I topped each tart off with some blueberries and strawberries, I had thought about a little dollop of whipped cream but my roommates who aren't huge fans of the stuff (a little weird in my opinion) vetoed that idea.

Because I decided to wait until after my flag football game to eat one, I still have yet to taste them, but my tooth is doing a little bit better. I took them for treats to my football game and the refs and random guys on the sideline seemed to enjoy them. And I think they looked decent for my first attempt.

For these treats I decided to listen to tunes of Taylor Swift, I'm pretty much in love Speak Now(2010) (well all of her music really especially this song and this cover of her song)