Sweet Recycling

Sweet Recycling – Tartelette

Sweet Recycling

21.10.2006

Helene Dujardin
(Senior Editor)
12 Comments

I guess I owe this to my upbringing but I am known in my family as the Queen of Recycling. At the restaurant, the executive chef and the owners loved me for that: failed cheesecake? No problem, we’ll have cheesecake mousse in parfaits glasses! Leftover pastry cream? No problem, we’ll have Bavarois! Dry chocolate cake? I’ll pulverize it and use the crumbs for crusts, decorative crumbs or something…Hey! I could even use it in those parfaits glasses to layer my mousse with! You get the picture. Mind you, not everything got recycled, in spite of my best effort.
I was reorganizing the pastry/baking drawer of my freezer the other day when I found some Sour Cream Pastry Dough that needed to be used by the end of the month. I had made a cheesecake for a friend during the week and had some leftover filling. I was also staring at a half jar of Blueberyy Tea Jelly which color looked like a gem stone in the sun. I had a vessel, a filling and a crown! I had been craving small bites to go along my tea or my coffee in the afternoon so I decided to make tinsy mini tartlets using my min muffin tins.
Sweet Cheese Tartlets with Blueberry Tea Jelly Crowns.

Sour Cream Pastry, adapted from Flo Braker’s Sweet Miniatures.
2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
8 oz. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup sour cream
In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the butter and cut in with a pastry knife or your fingers until you get pea sized crumbs.Add the sour cream and blend in quickly into a ball. Don’t over work the dough or it will be too elastic. Divide in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.
Cream Cheese Filling
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
In a bowl, blend the cream cheese and sugar. Add the egg and lemon zest. Blend well. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut 3 inch circles. Fit them into the cavities of the mini muffin tin and divide the cream cheese filling evenly among them. Bake at 350, for 10-15 minutes. Let cool completely.
For the Glaze:
Melt 1/2 cup of your favorite jelly. I used Blueberyy Tea that I made over the summer. Divide evenly on top of the tartlets and refrigerate until set.
Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and pop a few into your mouth!