Tiny tastebud tickling tarts...

Once again I am sorry for the delay between me posting on this blog, I really do intend to do it more and hopefully once a week. However I do have a valid excuse this time around, apart from just being lazy, I was out of the country and had an absolutely wonderful time in England.

The title might seem a bit over the top but these tarts really turned out how I intended them to, it also shows a little love of mine which is alliteration. They're just about the easiest dessert you can make and that just makes them all the more tasty.

When I did these I had some leftover shortcrust pastry and I felt very inspired to make use of it, so I scavenged out some small disposable aluminium pie pans and lined them with the pastry. Once I'd lined the pie pans with the pastry I baked it at 200° C, around 15 minutes "blind", which means covered with baking paper and filled with baking beans (or something to weigh the pastry down so it doesn't puff up and stays the shape you want it) and 5 minutes without the baking paper and beans.

While your crust is baking you can start the filling, which can literately be anything you feel like. The ones I made was basic stuff that I felt inspired to do. I made three different ones, very basic, very easy.

There's apple with cinnamon syrup.

Apple cinnamon has been done to death, but there's a reason for that. They go incredibly well together, it's one of the best combination in my humble opinion, not much beats it. What I did with mine is that I melted butter, unsalted, in a pan and added some brown sugar, once the sugar had melted I tipped in my sliced apples, the thinner you slice them the faster they cook but the important thing is that they are evenly sliced. Coat the apples in the sugar and butter then add the cinnamon, taste and let it sit for a while bubbling making sure the syrup gets infused with some cinnamon and apple taste. Once you're happy with the taste and the apples are almost done, tip it all into your pie crust and into the oven until the apples are soft and nice with a little chrunch to them, like al dente pasta. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

There's pear with cognac and honey syrup.

As with the apple and cinnamon one, pears and cognac go hand in hand, at least that's what I think. What I did with this one was basically the same as with the apple one. Melted butter, but instead of sugar you pour in some cognac and honey, a nice liquid honey, let that simmer a while. Taste it and add more cognac or honey if needed, then tip in your finely sliced pears and coat them with the syrup. Add them to your pie crust and put it in the oven until the pears are done, like the apples. Sprinkle a little brown sugar on top and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

And last but not least I did mixed berries with meringue.

Just as classic as the other ones, berries and meringue, the perfect combination between sweet and sour. What your looking for here is the balance between them, when you find it the few ingredients creates a taste explosion. In this one I used blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, you can use any berries you want. These ones were really nice frozen ones. I stirred them while they were still frozen in some sugar and left them to defrost, as this leaves you with a lot of juice you can either make sure that you have baked your crust properly so it wont go soggy by the fluid. Or you can drain the fluid and warm it up in a pan and use it as a sauce for the pie once it's done. What you need to do before you get your berries into the crust though is to prepare your meringue. I generally do ½ dl of sugar to each egg white, so if you have two egg whites it's 1 dl sugar and so on and I whip the whites a bit before adding the sugar since it takes longer to whip it with the sugar in. I sometimes also add some vanilla sugar to the meringue mixture. Once you can hold the bowl upside down over your head the meringue is ready to go. So add your berries to the crust and cover them with the meringue and get it in the oven, once the meringue is done and golden on top get it out of the oven and serve while the meringue is still warm and fresh.

And those were the fillings that I made. You just have to experiment and see what you like, and have fun!