Berries and Cream Tarts!

This weekend, for an engagment tea party, I made my very first pastry dough. And then I needed to make the pastry dough into something... and mini tarts seemed like the perfect solution. Finally I needed to fill the tart shells with something, and nothing says summer better that berries and cream! This recipe was taken from the June 2010 issue of Marth Stewart Magazine.

First the Pastry: I was/am very intimitated by pastry and therefore decided to try a relitivly 'easy' pastry recipe. (It is very similar to the Martha Stewart recipe mentioned below) Its 100 grams of Sugar, 2oo grams of Butter, and 300 grams of flour. Easy right? You simply cream the butter and sugar together, then add the flour, kneeding in the excess flour by hand. This dough is molded into a ball, wrapped in saran (cling) wrap and placed in the fridge for at least 20 mins. (This is a good time to make the cream filling)

Cream Filling: The cream filling recipe can be found on MarthaStewart.com and she can explain it much better than I can!

Now its time to roll out the pastry dough and place it in your tart shells. ( I did/do not have tart shells, having never made them before so I simply 'pammed' a mini cupcake pan and used that instead, the end result isnt quite as pretty, but they still taste great!)

Looking good so far!!! (There is a slight rip in that corner, that I just noticed now, it baked out as the pastry puffs alittle during baking)

You let the filled shells chill in the fridge for at least an hour, or untill they are firm, and then bake them at 325 for 15 to 20 minuites, untill they are a light golden bown. Yum! After they are removed from the oven, allow them to chill ( At this point the party was less than an hour away and I still didnt have my hair done, so I sped up that process by placing the trays in the freezer for a few minuites.)

After the shells have cooled you VERY CAREFULLY remove the shells from the tray. These actually came out rather well, I only broke 1! Not to shabby!

Phew... T minus 30 mins to the party now, and I have 24, well 23 empty and oh so cute tart shells!
The shells were then filled with the cream/custart filling, (which tasted amazing!) and then topped with fresh berries.

They looked pretty cute and tasted awesome, just the right size for a tea party! They were finished just in time to head off to the party!

(And the best part was that I had alot of leftover filling and berries... thats a healthy breakfast right? )