Dark Cherry Tarts Recipe

I tend to avoid difficult recipes, but frozen/instant puff pastry makes these dark cherry tarts easy enough to prepare. Yep, we all know homemade puff pastry is pretty time consuming.

Recipe adapted from JTT 

Ingredients (for +/- 9 pieces, 8 cm in diameter) :

Frozen puff pastry (1 box contains 3 sheets, each 20x20 cm)

One can of pitted dark cherries in heavy syrup

Pastry cream :  

30 gr  powder sugar

2 egg yolks

25 gr corn starch

1 tbsp vanilla extract 

250 ml plain milk

25 gr butter ( i use unsalted butter, but if you use salted butter/margarine, skip the salt)

a pinch of salt

Method :

Pastry cream :

1. In a bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients (powder sugar, salt, corn starch). Add the egg yolks, whisk until it blended and form into a slightly thick paste. 

2. Warm the milk and butter in the saucepan until you start to see small bubbles around the edge of the pan. Pour small amount of the hot milk into the eggs paste and stir to combine, then continue pouring the rest of the milk slowly while stirring continuously. 

3. Put everything back in the saucepan and set it over medium heat. Add vanilla extract, keep whisking and the runny mixture will start to thicken after a few minutes. Stirring constantly until the mixture comes to a boil and remove from heat immediately.

4. Cool the pastry cream. (If you see any cooked egg or thick lump, you can strain the pastry cream). Later you can cover the surface of the cream with a plastic wrap.

Dark Cherry Tarts :

1. Preheat oven to 185c.

2. Drain the dark cherries, cut into half.

3. Place the puff pastry sheet on a wax paper, use a knife or a cookie cutter to cut it into circles, then place it in a greased muffin tray.

4. Pour 2 tbsp of pastry cream into the puff pastry 'bowl', add the surface with dark cherries. Place in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Easy right?

 

I think these tarts are perfect served cold, but if you are among those who prefer to eat a warm tarts with smooth filling cream, go ahead. 

What can we do with a leftover sheet of frozen puff pastry? With a little bit of creativity, you can turn it into different pastries.

 ( Puff pastry + homemade pineapple jam)

 (Puff pastry + black pepper beef sausage)