Berry Cheese Tarts

When I was a kid I always wanted to have a tea party.  You know a tea party.  With mini-cakes, cucumber sandwiches...the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately, I never really got to enjoy tea time.  Until I became an adult.  Now I can have tea whenever I want.  And honestly, it's as fun as I always imagined it would be when I was a kid.

So, the other day, before our temperatures started to spike into the "I'm melting" category, I decided I really wanted a nice hot cup of tea with a fancy dessert.  So, I came up with this recipe.  It looks fancy (translation:  hard), and it is impressive looking, but it is actually rather simple to make.  The hardest part is making your tart shells, and really, once you make some Shortcrust Pastry Mix it's not hard at all!

Berry Cheese Tarts

Ingredients:

• 24 mini tart crusts (see below for instructions)
• 1 (8 ounce) block of cream cheese, softened
• 2 to 3 tbs. sugar (depending on sweetness level preferred)
• 1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 pint canned blueberries, 2 cups frozen (and thawed and well drained) blueberries, 2 cups fresh blueberries, or 1 can blueberry pie filling
• 2 tbs. apricot or other "clear type" jelly, melted

Procedure:

Place block of cream cheese in bowl of stand mixer with sugar and lemon juice.  Mix well until everything is combined well and mixture is smooth, scraping bowl at least once.

Take cooled tart shells (important there) and place about 1 tsp of cream cheese mixture into each tart.  Top each tart then with your blueberries of choice (I used home canned blueberries, well drained, for this).

Once blueberries are all added to the top of the tarts, take a pastry brush and brush a thin layer of the melted jelly on top of each tart.

Place in fridge to set for about 20 minutes.  Serve.

Store leftovers in fridge.

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Mini Tart Crusts

• 1 recipe Shortcrust Pastry Mix to make a double pie crust

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F

Take prepared shortcrust pastry mix and line 2 mini tart pans (12 tarts per pan).  Keep pie crust relatively thin so it doesn't get too puffy in the oven.  Once pans are lined, pierce bottom and sides of tarts with the tines of a fork.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

NOTE:  If you don't have a mini tart pan that is heavy as all get out like mine, you can use a muffin tin.  Just line the muffin tin about 1/2 the way up with the pie crust (if your muffin tins are pretty deep) so that your tarts don't come out too large.  Since the muffin tin (or a thin tart pan) are going to conduct heat better than my heavy honking pan, I'd check on those in about 8 to 10 minutes and than every four minutes thereafter until the crusts are golden.