music, food & life

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m automatically drawn to anything that comes in small, tiny portions.

That’s pretty much why, when I had a package of pie crust that needed to be used up, as well as a box of strawberries, I decided that I’d make these :) Though tarts of this sort normally have a shortbread crust, I was lacking a lot of ingredients, including absolutely no butter, cry. In my household, we almost NEVER buy strawberries except when they’re cheap, which is pretty much just once a year. So even though I’d gladly savour them as they are, I wanted to do something a little different and special.

These were really simple to make, especially since I didn’t make my own shortbread crust — it’s just a mix. The pastry cream is REALLY delish after it’s been chilled — cool, creamy, and best of all, not too eggy! :D It makes the perfect portion for these, which is just enough to fill 12 mini tarts. There’s really not much of a recipe to be followed  to make these, since you could use whipped cream or any kind of filling you want instead of the pastry cream. If anything, I’ll just post a recipe for the cream.

I didn’t take many pictures of  these since I was feeling uninspired the day I took them, haha. S’ALL GOOD.

Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 -1/2 cups milk (divided into 1 cup and 1/2 cup)
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Whisk together egg with 1/2 cup of milk. Set aside.
2. Mix the sugar, flour and salt in a small saucepan. Stir in 1 cup of milk and mix until  smooth.
3. Bring mixture to a boil at medium heat, whisking constantly. Be careful of clumps. Cook another 2 minutes and remove from heat; the mixture should have thickened up dramatically.
4. Combine egg and milk mixture with the mixture in the saucepan, whisking vigorously to combine. Return to heat and cook until it just starts to boil. Keep whisking until smooth.
5. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap directly touching the surface to prevent any skin from forming.
6. Chill for at least an hour in the fridge before using.