Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Mini Apple-Blackberry Tarts

The farm we get our CSA share from each week has an apple orchard, so I've had a ton of apples to go through. I generally don't like cooked apples, but baking apples aren't too tasty as slices. So I had to get creative.
The blackberries came from my backyard!
Ingredients:
2 roll-out pie crusts (pre-made or home-made)
Baking spray or butter

Filling:
3 cup chopped apple (baking apples work best)
3 cup blackberries, rinsed and drained (can choose to mash and strain out seeds, if desired.)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup oat flour (to thicken if needed)

Topping:
1/2 c quick cook oats
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter, chopped

Directions:
At any point during prep, preheat oven to 375 F.
Step 1: In a large bowl, stir together all the filling ingredients except the oat flour. Let sit 20 minutes. If mixture seems too watery, add oat flour to thicken.

Step 2: Meanwhile, roll out the first pie crust and use a large round cutter or bowl lip to cut circles twice the diameter of your muffin pan cups. Place dough circles in the greased (spray or butter) muffin pan and cut a little V of dough out where the circle overlaps when fitting into the cups. Press dough closed, and use little bits of dough to seal up any tears or holes. Save excess dough to roll into more. You should be able to make eleven to twelve tartlets, depending how thin you roll the dough and how big your cutter is. Set aside.

*I discovered that the box of rolled-up pie-crust dough in the refrigerated section of the grocery store has fake colors. So Hubby found some "safe" frozen molded crusts. [I did manage to find a safe roll-out version from Immaculate Baking Co, available online or at Whole Foods. They also make safe Crescent Roll dough, among other things!] I let the pre-molded crusts thaw then rolled them out. One crumbled coming out of the pan, so I mashed it into a ball and started over. The other just broke off at the sides, so I only had to roll those parts out with the scraps.

Step 3: In a small bowl, combine all the dry topping ingredients. Then add butter and use a fork to mix in as thoroughly as you can. Set aside.

Step 4: After filling has sat for 20 minutes, use a spoon to fill the dough cups as high as you like. You may have excess filling.
*Ahem.* You can choose to add the juice at the bottom of the bowl but that may weaken your tartlets.

Step 5: Sprinkle the topping mixture evenly over the tops.


Step 6: Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, or until edges of dough begin to brown.

The Verdict
Quite tasty. Hubby and I liked them, but they didn't hold up very well to being removed from the pan, so the extras were hard to store and re-heat. Mine were quite over-filled so the dough couldn't support the weight, and I think the juice made the bottoms weak too. But they re-heated well, and were a win overall. I won't win any awards for presentation though! What uuuuugly little pies!

1 comment:

  1. OMG... these look so yummy! I am totally going to try these out STAT :)

    ReplyDelete

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