BLUEBERRY AND SASKATOON MINI TARTS

I wanted to bring a bite size dessert to a meeting at work and decided to make two bite mini tarts using frozen blueberries and saskatoons.  The recipe is really no different than making pie.  You can use a muffin tin which makes a bigger tart but I used mini tart tins to make them smaller.  The mini tins I have hold two dozen shells.  You could also use mini muffin tins.

Dough for a double pie crust makes two dozen shells.  I use the recipe from the Tenderflake website and I make it in a mix master.  The Tenderflake recipe makes three double pie crusts.  I like to freeze the dough I don't need for future pies.  I use vegetable shortening for the pie crust.

To get the shape for making the shells for the mini tarts, I used a glass whose rim was a bit larger than the diameter of each well in the tin.  After rolling out the dough I used the rim of the glass to cut out a round circle which I pushed down into each individual well.  The recipe for the fruit filling is very similar for regular pie.  I used only a small amount of sugar.  The recipe takes a bit more time to make than regular pie as you need to keep re-rolling the leftover pieces from cutting out the dough with the glass rim.  The mini tarts turned out great partially due to the addition of the lemon zest.

Filling each shell with the fruit.

Cooling off on a rack.

INGREDIENTS:

dough for a double pie crust.  Another recipe that I like to use is the one from Tenderflake.

2 cups of blueberries or saskatoons
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lemon juice
lemon zest from one fresh lemon
pinch of salt


DIRECTIONS:

Mix up with the fruit, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, lemon zest and salt in a bowl and set aside.  Taking sections of the dough at a time, roll it out and use the rim of a glass jar to cut circles.  Gently push each circle into each well in a mini tart tin.  Instead of using the rim of a glass, you can also cut the dough into small squares and push each square into the well.  

To each tart shell, add a heaping teaspoon of the fruit mixture.  You don't want it to be heaping out of the tin well.  Depending on the size of the fruit you are using, you may need more than a teaspoon.  Bake at 375 degrees F for about 25 to 30 minutes.  Check to make sure the crust does not over brown.  Makes two dozen tarts.