Mini fruit tarts filled with vanilla pastry cream in a delicate cookie crust. Top with sliced strawberries or your choice of fresh fruit.
- Prep Time:
60 mins - Cook Time:
30 mins - Total Time:
1 hr 30 mins
I love fruit tarts. You know the ones where the fruit is beautifully arranged in perfect concentric circles on top of some vanilla pastry cream in a golden baked tart shell. They are so pretty you hardly want to cut them. Because the moment you slice it, the fruit always get messed up and the pastry cream spreads everywhere. It just feels wrong to leave so much delicious pastry cream on the plate. My solution – strawberry tartlets with vanilla pastry cream.
Mini fruit tartlets stay pretty right up to the moment you devour them. And because they are small, I usually devour two or three.
I used strawberries for these tartlets but you can use blueberries, raspberries, kiwi or mangoes. Fruit tartlets are very versatile.
Tips for baking tartlet shells
My favorite part of the tartlets is the shell. It is more like a sugar cookie. My kids would actually eat them like cookies if I let them.
Baking the shells used to be a challenge for me because the dough would puff up too much while it baked and the shells would come out rather misshapen. No matter how much I chilled the dough and docked it, I would have the same problem. Trying to fit pieces of aluminum foil on top of the dough in a mini-muffin pan never worked well for me either.
Fortunately, I found the perfect solution from Naomi Robinson at Bakers Royale. She uses mini-muffin liners. You put the liners on top of the dough and then fill it with beans as a weight. The liners are already the perfect size and shape and they make for easy removal. It was one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments when I found her post.
It is also important to generously butter and flour the mini-muffin pan so the shells will release easily from the pan. I actually prefer to use a non-stick baking spray like Baker’s Joy or PAM Baking Spray because it is much faster than greasing and flouring each well. It’s easy to over spray so I just wipe up any excess with a paper towel.
Can tartlets be made ahead of time?
You can make the tartlet shells and pastry cream a day ahead. Just store them separately until you need them. The strawberries or any cut fruit you’re using should be prepared the same day you’ll be using them. Once the tartlets are assembled, they should be eaten the same day (which is never a problem in our house).
Strawberry Tartlets with Vanilla Pastry Cream
- Prep Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: 24 tartlets
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American, French
Description
Mini fruit tarts filled with vanilla pastry cream in a delicate cookie crust. Top with sliced strawberries or your choice of fresh fruit.
Ingredients
For the tartlet shells
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- Baking spray (such as Baker’s Joy)
For the vanilla pastry cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar (divided)
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 teaspoon butter
For serving
- Sliced strawberries
- 1/2 cup apricot jam, optional
Instructions
For the tartlet shells
- Make dough. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add vanilla and egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and salt; beat until dough just comes together.
- Chill dough. Gather the dough together to form a ball and place it on a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper. Place another sheet of sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper on top and flatten the ball to a 1/2 inch thick disk. Transfer the dough to the refrigerator and chill until firm, 45 minutes.
- Prep oven and pan. When ready to bake the tartlet shells, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 24-well mini-muffin pan with baking spray (this is very important).
- Roll out dough. On a well floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Use a 2 1/2-inch diameter round cutter and cut out 24 rounds of dough, gathering scraps and re-rolling as necessary. Place a round of dough into each well of the prepared mini-muffin pan. Using your fingers, fit the dough to fit into the well; pleating the dough as necessary. If the dough becomes too soft to work with, chill it in the freezer for a few minutes until it is firm again. Using a small off-set spatula to lift the rounds of dough will also help.
- Chill and prick. Place muffin pan in freezer to chill dough until firm, 10 minutes. Prick the dough a couple of times with a fork and then place a mini-cupcake liner on top of each well of dough and fill it with rice or beans.
- Bake. Bake tartlet shells for 20 minutes, rotating the pan half way through. Remove the muffin liners and beans, and continue baking for another 4-5 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let tartlet shells cool in pan 5 minutes. Using the tip of a small paring knife to loosen the edges, gently remove the tartlet shells from the pan and allow to cool completely on baking rack.
For the vanilla pastry cream
- Prep ice bath. Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl (large enough to fit the saucepan you will be using) about half full with water and ice. Set aside.
- Scald milk. In a saucepan, whisk together milk, vanilla bean and seeds, and 1/4 cup sugar. Heat milk mixture over high heat until mixture just begins to boil. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Prep eggs. In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar until thick and pale. Sprinkle in cornstarch and flour; continue whisking until well combined. Set aside.
- Combine. Remove vanilla bean from milk mixture. Whisk half the hot milk into egg yolk mixture. Pour egg mixture into pan with remaining hot milk; slowly bring to a boil. Continue whisking until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat, stir in butter and let cool slightly.
- Cool. Gently set the saucepan in the ice bath, being careful to not let any water or ice get into the pan. Stir pastry cream occasionally until it is cool, about 30 minutes. Use pastry cream immediately or press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pastry cream and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
To make the tartlets
- Assemble. Spoon pastry cream into the tartlet shells and top with sliced strawberries. If desired, melt apricot jam in microwave and brush a small amount of jam onto fruit to give it a pretty shine.
Notes
- For the purpose of pretty photos, I left the stems on the strawberries. However, I removed the stems before serving the tartlets.
- For a variation, you can use blueberries, raspberries, kiwi, or mangoes instead of strawberries.
- Recipe for vanilla pastry cream adapted from Martha Stewart.
- Recipe for tartlet shells adapted from Martha Stewart Living.
- Baking technique for tartlet shells from Bakers Royale.
Brooklyn says
The shell dough was so dry and wouldn’t stick together. I threw out the first batch thinking I must have messed something up in the recipe. The second one was exactly the same. So dry and crumbles everywhere. Didn’t get to try the cream
Nguyet Vo says
Hi Brooklyn. I am sorry the recipe didn’t work for you. By any chance, did you use the Scale button (2x or 3x)? The Scale button and the Units button are a feature of the recipe card plug-in I use but I think they are causing more problems than they are helping. I’ve decided to disable these buttons for awhile until I can go through all the recipes on the site and check the calculations. Again, sorry if the problem was with the Scale button. I hope you’ll give the recipe another try. Thanks.
Marnie says
I’m wanting to make these for a potluck after church. Do you think I could compile everything and then leave them in the fridge for like 3 hours? I’m concerned about the pastry cream melting. Is that a thing?
Taming of the Spoon says
I think storing the assembled tartlets for 3 hours in the refrigerator will be fine. The crusts may get a tiny bit soft but just a bit. And the pastry cream will hold up without a problem if it’s chilled.
Michelle says
This recipe is delicious. I used the mini muffin tin from Pampered Chef which comes with a wooden muffin press. So I just made balls of dough and put them in the muffin tin and used the press to push them into the tin. Then I used the cake tester to remove the muffins using the opposite end which is a muffin lifter. Also from Pampered Chef.
Michelle says
By using the wooden press, there is no need for rolling out the dough or using excess flour.
Taming of the Spoon says
Wow. That sounds like a great tool!
Michelle zandvoort says
My daughter would like to make these at school for her cooking class. Since they are one of our favourite sweet treats to eat.
Can you make pastry cream on both a gas stove and and induction hob?
Also can you make the pastry cream in an aluminium and stainless steel pot?
Taming of the Spoon says
I make the pastry cream using an All-Clad (stainless steel with an aluminum core) saucepan on a gas stove. I don’t have any experience using an induction hob but as long as you can accurately control the temperature on it, it should be fine.
Gail says
Our tart dough came out very crumbly. It was hard to put in the pans.
Taming of the Spoon says
I’m sorry the tart dough was crumbly for you. Possible things to look at might be how the flour was measured for the dough and how much flour was added when the dough was rolled out.
When measuring flour by volume, King Arthur Flour recommends using the following steps:
1. Fluff up the flour with a scoop or spoon
2. Sprinkle it into your dry-cup measure (the one that measures exactly a cup at the top)
3. Scrape off the excess with a straight edge (like the back of a knife)
When rolling out the dough, be careful not to work in too much extra flour. I have found that rolling dough out on a silicone mat allows me to use less flour than I would otherwise.
I hope that helps. Thanks.
P.S. Apologies for the slow reply. I was on a 7 day camping trip without electricity or cell phone service.