Raspberry Tartlets with Pastry Cream Filling

These cute little raspberry tartlets are sooooo good: buttery, crumbly crusts, filled with a silky smooth vanilla pastry cream and topped with fresh, juicy raspberries. Yum!

Baking season is upon us. Yay! And while I would normally celebrate September with an apple pie (or two), this year I decided to do things a bit differently and made these cute raspberry tartlets. No regrets. These little cuties are delicious! 

This recipe was actually inspired by something the Rocking Rebel bought at our local bakery last week: something typically Dutch called frambozenslof, which roughly translates into ‘raspberry slipper’. It’s basically a pie, but it has a flat, oval shape. I guess that’s why it’s called ‘slipper’. At any rate, they are very cosy and comforting, like actual slippers. The Rocking Rebel bought us mini slippers to surprise me when we went for a picnic in the park. They were sooooo good – buttery and rich yet fruity – that we bought them again the next day. And when a shop assistant told us that they were just a weekly special, the Rocking Rebel practically begged me to come up with my own recipe so he would not be deprived of his raspberry slippers. Is it me, or does that sound weird to you, too? 😉

Love using the word ‘slipper’, though…

Anyway, to make a long story short, here they are: my first try at mini raspberry slippers. They are not quite the same as the ones we got from the bakery (comparing theirs with mine, I think they must have used a baked custard filling), but delicious all the same.

They’re super easy to make, too. The dough for the tartlet shells needs to chill in the fridge for an hour, but apart from that it comes together really fast.

You first stir together sugar and Golden Syrup (or, if you don’t have that, honey) until the sugar looks like damp sand, or golden light brown sugar. You know, light brown sugar, but golden. If that makes sense… You then cream it together with some softened butter. Add half an egg yolk to the mix. Some flour, salt and baking powder, and that’s it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge to chill. Super fast. Super easy.

Once the dough has chilled, roll it out, use a cookie cutter to cut out nice little rounds and bake them in a cupcake tin. Obviously, raspberry slippers – even mini ones – are not normally baked in a cupcake tin, but lacking a slipper tin I had to improvise and the cupcake tin worked like a charm. The resulting shells looked super cute! And were they delicious… Crumbly and buttery and, I don’t know, maybe even a bit savory? Despite all the sugar in there. Yum, yum.

The pastry cream is silky and smooth and subtly vanilla-y and also really easy to make. Just your basic vanilla pudding. Use flour, or cornstarch, or even custard powder if you have it. It all works.

My secret to make these tartlets taste even better? Make them the day before you want to serve them, so that the crumbly crust has time to soak up the pastry cream a bit. They’ll still be crumbly and short, but in a moist, super flavorful sort of way. Top tip!

As for me, I can’t wait to experiment a bit more with this pastry. It’s soooo good. It would be awesome with salted caramel and nuts, too. And if you know me at all you know I love, love, love salted caramel.

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Enjoy!

Raspberry Tartlets with Pastry Cream Filling

 

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Prep time

45 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

1 hour 5 mins

 

These cute little raspberry tartlets are sooooo good: buttery, crumbly crusts, filled with a silky smooth vanilla pastry cream and topped with fresh, juicy raspberries.

Author: The Tough Cookie. Crust recipe adapted from 'Appelsloffen' on 'Caroline's Blog'

Serves: 10

Ingredients

For the pastry cream filling:

• 190ml (or ¾ cup + 2 teaspoons) whole milk
• 60ml (or ¼ cup) heavy whipping cream
• 2 large egg yolks
• 50g (or ¼ cup) granulated sugar
• 15g (or 5¾ teaspoon) all-purpose flour or custard powder
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla paste or extract

For the tartelette shells:

• 95g (or ⅓ cup) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon Golden Syrup or honey
• 90g (or ⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• ½ large egg yolk
• 125g (or 1 cup) all-purpose flour
• pinch of table salt
• 1¼ teaspoon baking powder

Topping:

• 30 raspberries

Instructions

Make the pastry cream filling:

1. Combine milk and cream in a small saucepan.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together sugar and flour. Add a few tablespoons of the milk mixture and whisking into a smooth paste. Add the yolks to the flour and sugar mixture and whisk until well combined, about 2 minutes.
3. Scald the remaining milk mixture over low heat, stirring regularly.
4. Once the milk mixture has reached scalding point, slowly drizzle it into the yolk mixture, whisking continuously to prevent the yolks from scrambling.
5. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over low to medium heat, whisking continuously, until the cream thickens and starts to bubble. Cook the cream for other thirty seconds, then remove from the heat.
6. Whisk the pastry cream to knock out some of the heat, then stir in the vanilla paste or extract.
7. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming and allow it to cool to room temperature before placing it in the fridge to chill.
8. Pastry cream can be made a day ahead.

Make the shells:

1. In a medium-sized bowl, combine sugar and Golden Syrup (or honey). Stir together with a fork until thoroughly combined and the sugar looks like damp sand.
2. Add the butter. Using a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then mix for another thirty seconds. Add the egg yolk and mix for until minute, or until well combined.
3. In another bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and, using a wooden spoon, stir until a smooth dough forms. The dough should be quite soft.
4. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to chill in the fridge for one hour.
5. Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F (standard oven setting) and grab yourself a cupcake or muffin tin. Cut 10 rounds of baking parchment to fit the bottoms of the cupcake wells, then use them to line the bottom of the cupcake wells. Use a little butter to help them stay in place.
6. Once the dough has chilled, roll it to a thickness of about 0.8 cm (one third of an inch), cut out dough rounds using a cookie cutter with a diameter that is slightly larger than the bottom of the cupcake wells, then lightly press each dough round in a lined cupcake well. No need to grease the sides of the tin if you use a metal tin.
7. Bake on a rack in the middle of the oven for 16-20 minutes, or until golden brown and risen. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before inverting the pan onto the counter, and lightly rap the tin onto the counter to loosen the tartlet shells. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Assemble:

1. Fill the tartlet shells with the prepared pastry cream and top with the raspberries. Tartlets are best served a day after they’re made, as the pastry cream softens the crumbly pastry a bit. Tartlets can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.

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