Butter Tarts

This time for Gayatri's Eggless Baking, we had to bake Butter Tarts ! Last month, we tried Japanese Chocolate Cornets and this time we move to Canada :)..The original Canadian tarts has pastry shells filled with brown sugar, butter & eggs! So, this time 'Silken Tofu' was the perfect answer as the egg substitute...

Don't you just want to bite into them?? :)

I have never had tarts before :) but have heard so much about it! I mean, when you grow  up reading Enid Blyton books, how can you miss not knowing what tarts are ..right?? The picnic lunches, deserts, the hostel spreads would  consist of tarts, lemonades, pancakes with maple syrup, marmalade.. they all seemed so alien, yet so exotic.. & now years later, to make tarts was exciting & when they turn out well..i am reliving all those moments :)

The tarts have a perfect blend of crispiness & sweetness.. The pastry crust is crisp yet flaky and the brown sugar filling with nuts makes every bite worthwhile! Walnuts & raisins  are the choice of nut.. but personally, next time i would avoid the raisins..you don't need to sweeten the filling do you ??

Ingredients

For the Pastry Shells ( Makes 12 pastry shells)

1. All purpose flour - 1-1/4 cup

2. Salt - 1/2 tsp

3. Sugar - 1 tbsp

4. COLD Butter - 1/2cup  or 1 stick sliced into 1/2 inch cubes

5. Ice water - 3 tbsp

For the Filling ( Makes filling for 6 pastry shells)

1. Butter - 3tbsp

2. Brown sugar - 1/2 cup

3. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp

4. Silken Tofu - 1/4 cup

5. Milk - 2 tbsp

6. Nuts ( Raisins & Walnuts put together) - 1/4 cup

Preparation Time!!

1. In a bowl, take the all purpose flour. To this add the salt and sugar and mix well

2. To this add the butter and mix it really well using a pastry blender or hands and make a crumbly mixture

3. Then slowly start with adding 1tbsp of ice water and slowly use hand to hold the dough together. I used 3 tbsp of water in total. Cover the dough using a cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour

4. After an hour, remove the dough out and pinch a portion. Dust some flour on the rolling base and roll out to a big circle..of uniform thickness ( not very thin nor thick..) and cut out into circles using a lid /cookie cutter

5. Place these small circles in a muffin pan and mould it to cups. Repeat the same for the rest of the dough and refrigerate the mould for half hour

6. As the pastry shells are getting chilled.. lets make the filling. Take the butter, melt it & to this add brown sugar & mix it

7. Blend the silken tofu with milk in a blender

8. Add the silken tofu to the brown sugar mixture, add vanilla essence. Mix well and add the nuts * to form a semi liquid filling

9. Finally, remove the chilled pastry shells. Add the filling ( a little more than half of cup) and pre heat oven to 375 F

10. Bake for 15 -20 minutes till the crust turns brown and filling is set.. I baked it for 20 minutes in all 

Serve warm or chilled.. Tastes great either way.. We had it fresh from the oven & refrigerated it and enjoyed it the next day too :)

Can you see the crispy pastry crust??

Pointers

* In the original recipe.. they add the nuts to the base of the pastry shell and then add the filling. i just though of mixing it! You could replace walnuts with pecans or skips nuts too..

1.If you don't want to make the pastry shells, you could buy tart sheets, but CHECK the ingredients, as many might have LARD!!!

2. Its actually pretty simple to make, just the cooling time.. Always use COLD BUTTER!

3. The Pastry shells mixture could be refrigerated overnight too!

4. I reduced the recipe for the filling..so just made 6 pastry shells.. remaining trying for another experiment ;)..if successful, you shall see it soon!