The best time in the world is having the time to spend quality and precious time with loves one. During the weekend, I've made these mini cheese tarts just for the sake of to get hand-on and to practice my flower design using toothpick skills. :) But it turned out to be a practical session as my hubby and my kids joining the fun together. It was fun with everybody giving compliment to each others.
I am using a recipe from azlita masam manis blog (a malay language blog), which is very easy to follow and show the step-by-step of the process. She’s having and published her recipes collections with very good food photography. I can’t comment much as I myself a beginner and learning still.
Ingredient for crust / shell:
170gm butter
50gm icing sugar
1 egg (C grade)
290gm flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
Tart mold
Method
- Beat and mix margarine and sugar using spatula. Do not over do it.
- Add in egg and vanilla essence.
- Add the flour a little at a time until everything is mixed together and formed soft dough.
- Shape the dough into a ball and put in the plastic bag and refrigerate overnight. (I refrigerate for 20 -30 minutes only – before using take out from fridge and wait awhile until the dough soften)
- Place dough onto the tart mold and poked the base with fork.
- Bake at 170C for 20 to 25 minutes or until brown.
Ingredients for Cream Cheese Filling:
250gm cream cheese
50gm castor sugar
1 egg (B grade)
1/2 tsp vanilla or lemon essence
Enough blueberry filling – store bought
Method
- Beat cheese and sugar until creamy and fluffy
- Add in egg and vanilla essence, beat till well mix.
- Ready for use.
- To make the process of pouring the cream cheese onto the baked shell or crust easy, spoon the cream cheese filling into piping bag. Same goes for the blueberry filling.
Pipe the blueberry filling
Pipe the cream cheese filling
Flower design process (Step-by-step)
- Take a teaspoon of the cream cheese filling and add a little bit of food coloring and mix well. (Do not leave the filling to long as the will be harden!)
- Using a toothpick, make a small line.
- Drag the toothpick down by cutting thru the middle of the small line, starting from top of the line.
- Then you will get a beautiful blue flower or leaves. :P
To make two colors flowers
- Need at least 3 stick of toothpicks. 1 for red color, 1 for green color and another 1 is use to drag the line.
- Mix the food coloring with 1 teaspoon of cream cheese filling.
- Make a big dot for red color and a small line for green color.
- Using a clean toothpick, drag the toothpick down by cutting thru the middle of the dot and small line.
- There you have it! You can refer the below picture for other design.
Do not Forget to bake it! Bake at 170C for 5 minutes. Check: Touch the top of the cream cheese filling, if it doesn't stick to your finger then it's done.
