Cheese tarts.. they are cute and yummy...
One of Malaysian favorites sweet desserts are Cheese Tart. You can find it easily in bakery, usually sold in 3" diameter size ( about size of a palm) with Blueberry filling, Blueberry Cheese tart.
Blueberry always match with Cheese, but this cheese tart can have other fillings too. I tried Blueberry, Apple, Kiwi,Strawberry and Chocolate. I personally prefer blueberry & chocolate.
Making it is not difficult, but might be little bit time consuming for first timers. But, trust me the outcome is worth rewarding.
My recipe has been twisted and changed to adapt with my super busy lifestyle. Recipe
cheat in making it
tastier, easier and still look
great in presentation.
You never bake before? no worries with detailed instructions below, anyone can whip a whimsically awesome cheese tarts~~ (^o^)
There are 4 steps to make this cheese tart and you can make one step at a time.
To complete from step 1 to 4 in one go, you may need around 2-3 hours, depending on how skillful you are to make the tart shells (^p^). Optional, you can buy ready made tart shells at baking store (
but it won't taste as nice as making it from scratch.)
Cheese Tart
Tools needed
1) Tarts mould
2) Small knife
3) Hand mixer
4) Plastic piping bag ( u can use normal plastic bag as well)
5) Microwave or Stove (optional) & Oven of course. :)
Step 1) To make Tart shell - sweet pasty
Ingredients
125 gram salted butter - cut to small cubes
70 gram icing sugar
250 gram all purpose flour
1 egg yolks ( Size A-Large)
1 tablespoon of iced cold water
1/2 teaspoon essence vanilla
Methods
1) Mix and sift flour and icing sugar. Use fork to cut butter into sifted flour and sugar until it resemble bread crumb alike.
2 ) Put egg yolks, essence vanilla and cold water.
3) Continue to mix the pastry dough with your hand until well blended.
4) Wrap in plastic and keep in fridge for 30 minutes. ( you can prepare this pastry dough and keep in fridge day ahead)
5) Place the pastry inside the mould. Press pastry with your finger to spread the pastry to mould the shape.
6) Cut the excess pastry with small knife to get a nice clean edges.
7) Prick some holes with a fork on the pastry shell.
8) Bake at low rack at 180C for 10 -15 minutes until it's golden brown.
Tips
* keep baked tart shell in airtight container.
* if you want to keep it for months, store in airtight container and freeze it in freezer. Reheat in oven for 5 minutes before using it.
Step 2) To prepare Cheese Filling
Ingredients ( this recipe is to make fillings for just enough tart crust prepared above)
250 grams Cream Cheese
40 gram butter ( I used Buttercup)
60 grams icing sugar
1 egg ( A Size)
1 teaspoon essence vanilla /lemon juice
Methods
1) Beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar with mixer until combined for 3 minutes with medium/high speed.
2) Add eggs, lemon juice and essence vanilla. Beat with low speed for 1 minutes.
3) Transfer cream cheese into piping bag.
Step 3) To combine tart shell with cream cheese and fillings
Fillings:
- Blueberry fillings or ( you can make or purchase this from baking store)
Methods
1) Transfer fillings into piping bag. Cut small holes to pipe the filling.
2) Pipe filling into baked tart shell pastry.
3) Pipe cream cheese on top of it until full
4) Bake at low rack in oven at 180C for 10-15 minutes. Do not over bake until the cheese crack.
Step 4) Decorations
There are many ways to decorate topping for cheese tart. Some create swirl pattern with blueberry jam on top of the cheese tart before baking. But I found it's too time consuming..leceh laaa. Below is my cheat decoration. You can complete it in just few minutes.
What you need:
~200 grams cooking chocolate
Methods
This is my cheat steps to melt cooking chocolate in small quantity. Instead of using double boiler, I used microwave.
1) Cut cooking chocolate into chunks, put in microwaveable bowl, I used ceramic bowl.
2) Heat in microwave as steps below:
- Microwave for 10 seconds.
- Microwave 10 seconds again. Take it out and stir with spoon, at this time the chocolate has melted half.
- Put back into microwave for another 10 seconds. Take out and stir. It has already melted. Transfer into piping bag for easy handling.
- After sometimes, the chocolate may get harden in room temperate. When this happened just throw the piping bag with chocolate inside microwave and set for 10 seconds. Ching! it's melted again.
3) You can now decorate cheese tart top. You can write or draw with chocolate.
4) Let the chocolate harden and it's DONE! Chill this lovely tarts in fridge for better taste.
* If you refrigerate in airtight container, cheese tart can last for 1~2 weeks.
Still looks too difficult to make yourself? well you can always order it from WhimsyBake (^o^)
Delivery to pick up area available at Cyberjaya & Puchong area.
