Goat Cheese Tartlets

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For our “fancy meal” this week, we went with

  • Goat Cheese Tartlets
  • Baked Butternut Squash
  • Beets in a Balsamic Pecan Glaze
  • Dinner rolls

The butternut was easy; just slice in half, clean out the seeds, and bake for 60 minutes at 350°F. The dinner rolls were frozen from the last time we made basic bread; we thawed them and just popped them in the oven about 10 minutes before it was time to serve. The beets in the Balsamic Pecan Glaze is essentially the recipe provided here, only with pecans substituting for walnuts. But the Goat Cheese Tartlets are a new recipe, and, while they sound fancy, they are really easy to put together. We’ll show you.

We based this on a recipe that we found in In My Kitchen by Ted Allen. We modified it a bit to give the tartlets a little more flavor, and cut back the recipe so it would be more manageable for two.

Goat Cheese Tartlets

Servings: 6 tartlets
Author: Shawn

Ingredients

For the crust

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 1/2 Tbs unsalted butter chilled and cut in small pieces
  • 1 egg
  • 2-3 Tbs heavy cream

For the filling:

  • 3 ounces fresh goat cheese
  • 1 tsp basil
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • pepper to taste
  • pinch nutmeg

Instructions

Make crust.

  • Mix together dry ingredients for the crust.
  • Put the butter pieces in, and with you fingers, work the butter into the flour. After a minute or two, you should have a coarse crumbly meal-like texture.
  • Add egg and stir it in.
  • Add 2 tablespoons cream and stir. Did the dough come together? If not, add a bit more cream. Once the dough comes together, shape into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate.

Make filling:

  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl and mix until mostly smooth.
  • On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4-inch. Cut out 3-inch diameter disks.
  • Put the disks in a lightly greased muffin tin and press down to make a cup.
  • Divide the filling evenly among the cups.
  • Bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and starting to brown.

Ingredient discussion:

Eggs should be pastured; it’s the best for the hens, and, if you want the best eggs, you better treat those hens right. If possible, get your goat cheese from happy goats. Happy goats are healthy goats, and healthy goats make for healthy cheese, and healthy cheese makes you happy.

Procedure in detail:

Make crust.

flour, salt, baking powder
Just mix the dry ingredients for the crust together. Some people say sift, we say don’t bother.

Mix together dry ingredients. Stir them around in a medium-sized bowl so you won’t have any pockets of salt.

cutting in butter
Mix in the butter until you have a coarse meal. We just started in this photo.

Add butter. Put the butter pieces in, and with you fingers, work the butter into the flour. After a minute or two, you should have a coarse crumbly meal-like texture.

adding egg
Once the butter is cut in, add the egg.

Add egg. Crack it right in and stir it around. The dough won’t quite come together, but that’s okay; we’ll fix it up next.

adding cream
Then mix in the heavy cream. Add it a bit at a time until the dough comes together.

Add cream. Add 2 tablespoons cream and stir. Did the dough come together? If not, add a bit more cream. Once the dough comes together, shape into a disk and….

tart dough
Wrap and chill. In the fridge for at least 10 minutes, at most a day.

Refrigerate. Pop it in the fridge for at least 10 minutes, or as long as a day. When you’re ready to bake, move on to the next step.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

tart filling
Mix all fining ingredients together in one go.

Make filling. Just dump all the filling ingredients in a bowl and mix until mostly smooth. A few lumps of cheese won’t hurt, but it won’t be any better if you get rid of them all, either. After all, they’ll melt when you bake the tartlets.

cutting dough
Use something to cut out nice tart dough circles. We just use a glass.

Roll out dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4-inch. Cut out 3-inch diameter disks. We use a glass; you can use a cookie cutter, or a glass, it won’t matter. Re-roll the scraps until you have six disks.

tart dough in muffin tin
Press the dough into the muffin tin. Most look pretty good, just a few are deformed.

Place in muffin tin. Put the disks in a lightly greased muffin tin and press down to make a cup.

filled tarts
Fill with about two tablespoons of filling. Try to make sure each cup has about the same amount

Fill. Divide the filling evenly among the cups. Each will take about 2 tablespoons or so. Maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more.

baked tarts
While baking they’ll puff up nicely. And turn a bit brown, too.

Bake. Pop them in the oven and bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and starting to brown.

Serve immediately.

These tartlets are pretty good, but to our minds, they’re lacking something in the flavor department. We think they’d be even better with cherry tomato halves placed on top before baking. That would make them five stars, but for now, just 4.

Worth the trouble?

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