Sweet Tartlets

Name: Sweet Fruit Tartlets with Custard – Step-by-Step Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h
Cuisine: French cuisine
Ingredients: Wheat flour 1 cup (130 g); Egg 1; Sugar 2 tbsp (27 g); Butter 30 g; Vanilla or vanilla sugar to taste; Milk 2.5–3% 1 cup (200 ml); Egg yolks 2; Corn starch 1 tbsp (10 g); Sugar 1 tbsp (14 g); Vanilla, citrus extract a few drops; Instant gelatin 1 tsp (4 g); Water 2–3 tbsp; Bananas, kiwi, grapes, berries 3–4 kinds

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As a kid, my favorite pastry was the shortcrust cup with fruit, a layer of custard and a light jelly on top. The name “sweet fruit tartlets” I only learned later. It is an amazing combination of shortcrust pastry and fresh berries – raspberries, strawberries, often blueberries and grapes. To be honest, I didn’t even need tea with a dessert like that, though my mom insisted.

At some point it came as a discovery to me that a torte and a tart are two different pastries, not one and the same. The original French tart is an open pie made from a particular kind of shortcrust pastry with no added salt or sugar, baked as a flat round, rather like a pizza. It is usually easy to recognize by its fluted edge – the mark of a special baking pan.

The filling for a tart is up to you. It can be meat, mushrooms, vegetables, fruit, berries and so on. The filling is covered with an egg and cream mixture and baked. An apple tart is somewhat like a charlotte, only made with shortcrust pastry. There is a separate kind of tart baked in small molds – these are savory or sweet tartlets. I once read somewhere that long ago such little cups were baked right in a wood-fired oven and called “tartines”.

Tartlets are made to be filled, usually with something sweet. But nobody said that a small tart of unsweetened pastry filled with pâté or your favorite sandwich spread would taste bad. Besides, there are plenty of examples of these cups being used as the base for individual appetizers with sausage, olives, salty cheese and so on.

On their own, tartlets are rather “dry”. So before the fruit and berries go in, they are filled with a cream – most often custard, crème anglaise, or, less often, crème brûlée. Broadly speaking, these are all variations of the custard used to fill cream puffs. Fruit pastries with custard, especially in a shortcrust tartine, are a very tasty dessert and a pleasure to look at, too.

Sweet tartlets with delicious custard, fresh fruit and berries under a thin jelly – an elegant dessert.

Ingredients

4 tartlets

Wheat flour 1 cup (130 g)
Egg 1
Sugar 2 tbsp (27 g)
Butter 30 g
Vanilla or vanilla sugar to taste

Milk 2.5–3% 1 cup (200 ml)
Egg yolks 2
Corn starch 1 tbsp (10 g)
Sugar 1 tbsp (14 g)
Vanilla, citrus extract a few drops

Instant gelatin 1 tsp (4 g)
Water 2–3 tbsp
Bananas, kiwi, grapes, berries 3–4 kinds

Step-by-step recipe

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Shortcrust cups

Small tartlets up to 10 cm across are very handy bases for desserts and appetizers. Since the dough contains no water, it keeps for a while, so you can bake as many cups as you need in advance. Very convenient silicone molds are sold now – the dough doesn’t stick to them, and the shortcrust cups bake evenly and uniformly.

Sift the flour and mix it with 2 tbsp of sugar (27 g) and natural vanilla (vanilla sugar works too). Stir so that everything is evenly distributed. Add one egg and the softened butter.

Knead the shortcrust dough very thoroughly. The fat blends well with the flour into a smooth mass. Keep kneading until the egg has dissolved the sugar. If needed, add flour a pinch at a time. You will end up with a smooth, soft dough. Roll the dough into a ball and put it in the fridge.
Divide the dough into four parts and roll each out with a rolling pin to about 1 cm thick. Place the dough in a silicone mold and press it up the sides with your fingers to an even thickness. Pinch off the excess dough, using the rim of the mold as a guide.
There’s no need to grease silicone molds. They are “slippery” enough on their own, and the shortcrust dough for the cups contains butter.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
You can bake the tartlets in a small countertop electric oven or a regular oven. The electric one is more convenient, since it holds the temperature steadily. I bake crème brûlée in mine, and quite successfully.
Carefully prick the dough on the bottom of the mold with a fork so it doesn’t puff up while baking. Put the molds with the dough in the oven.
Bake for 15–20 mins. Go by the color of the dough – it will soon start to brown, especially on the side pressed against the wall of the mold.
The dough “slides” down the sides of the mold a little and settles. The cup will end up slightly lower than the mold – that’s normal.
Tip the finished tartlets out of the molds – they don’t stick to silicone at all. Lay the cups out on a clean cloth and let them cool to room temperature.

Custard

For the custard you need regular fresh milk with 2.5–3% fat. We decided not to add egg whites, although many recipes recommend it: just two yolks, corn starch, sugar and vanilla. We also add citrus extract for aroma and flavor – literally a few drops.

In a cup, mix 1 tbsp of corn starch (10 g), two egg yolks and 2–3 tbsp of milk. Stir thoroughly and leave for the starch to swell.

Cook the custard. Put the rest of the milk in a small saucepan over the heat, adding the vanilla and citrus extract. Stir 1 tbsp of sugar (14 g) into the milk. When the milk is well heated but still far from boiling, pour in the mixture of yolks, starch and milk, stirring the milk quite vigorously with a wooden spatula.
Keep heating: as it heats, the starch will “cook”, forming a fairly thick but still pourable custard.

Assembling the tartlets

Set all the baked cups on a plate or a small tray. Using a spoon, pour the warm custard into each cup – almost to the rim. The custard flows easily off the spoon, so it is easy to divide between the cups.
Next – and this is important – the tartlets need to be well chilled: put them in the fridge for 30 mins, or better for 1 h. The custard sets beautifully into a cream with a pleasant yellow hue and a texture like a not very firm jelly.
While the cups are chilling, dissolve 1 tsp of instant gelatin (4 g) in 2–3 tbsp of water in a small saucepan.
Prepare the fruit. Peel the kiwi and bananas and cut them into thin slices. Cut large grapes in half and seed them. Raspberries, blueberries or blackberries just need washing and drying. Strawberries are better sliced, although small berries look lovely whole.
The choice of fruit and berries is up to you. My only advice is not to pile on too much topping and to use no more than 3–4 kinds.
Arrange the fruit on top of the custard. The fruit slices should lie in a single layer, while berries and grapes can be scattered over the cup or piled up in a small mound. To make the dessert a feast for the eyes, try to alternate fruits of different colors.
Heat the gelatin in the water until it has completely dissolved, then cool it to room temperature. Spoon it over the fruit to form a thin layer of jelly.
Put the cups back in the fridge – for just 15 mins, the gelatin sets very quickly.

Serving

Serve the finished tartlets with custard and fruit in jelly as a dessert. They are so tasty that I’m not sure they need tea or coffee at all. I’d say the perfect drink for fruit tartlets is a good, slightly sweet red wine.

Calories and macros

238 kcal

100 g

Protein6.3 g11% of kcal
Fat9.2 g35% of kcal
Carbs31.3 g54% of kcal

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

To keep the custard from turning lumpy

The yolk and starch mixture goes into hot milk that is still far from boiling, and you stir vigorously with a wooden spatula right away. Keep the heat moderate and stay by the saucepan until the custard thickens.

If lumps do appear, push the warm custard through a sieve.

Baking the cups ahead

Shortcrust dough contains no water, so the cups keep for a while – you can bake a batch in advance for several occasions. Add the custard and fruit on the day you serve them.

Other fillings

Cream: besides custard, the cups are filled with crème anglaise or crème brûlée.
Savory: a small tart of unsweetened pastry with pâté or your favorite sandwich spread, appetizers with sausage, olives, salty cheese.

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Questions and answers

What dough is used for sweet tartlets?

Shortcrust with no water: for four 10 cm cups, 1 cup of flour (130 g), 1 egg, 30 g of butter, 2 tbsp of sugar (27 g) and vanilla. Knead until the sugar has dissolved.

How long do you bake shortcrust tartlets?

15–20 minutes at 180 °C. Go by the color: the cups are ready when they start to brown along the sides of the mold.

How do you make tartlets without tartlet molds?

Metal cupcake or muffin tins work – unlike silicone, grease them with butter. Press the dough up the sides with your fingers the same way and prick the bottom with a fork.

How long does the custard take to set in tartlets?

30 minutes in the fridge, better 1 hour. The jelly over the fruit sets faster – in about 15 minutes.

How do you keep tartlets from getting soggy?

Fill only fully cooled cups and serve them the same day. A thin layer of jelly on top seals the fruit, so the juice doesn’t run into the custard.

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