Red, White, and Blue Tartlets

My blogging buddy Miss Laney told me I should make something Red, White, and Blue for the Fourth of July.  Since the 4th is one of my favorite holiday's I agreed.  When I went to the store the fresh fruit looked absolutely unbelievable so I had plenty of strawberries and blueberries to use for this recipe.  My husband loves pie so I thought that these would be fun little individual sized pies that we could share.  I modified a fabulous recipe given to me by my friend LuAnn for the filling of these, and I had to give some of these tartlets away because I couldn't stop eating them! The filling was seriously addictive!  Anyway, from my kitchen to yours, Happy Fourth of July!

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Red, White, and Blue Tartlets

1 recipe for Favorite Pie Crust, you will have some left over dough
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp butter
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup vanilla chips
4 oz cream cheese, softened
whipped cream
1 cup fresh strawberries, rinsed, topped, sliced
1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed

For the Tart Shells:

Preheat your oven to 400˚ F.  

Divide the dough into small portions that when rolled into a ball fit into a 1/2 Tbsp (1 1/2 tsp) measuring spoon.  

Place each dough ball into the well of a mini-muffin tin. 

 Using a tart shaper press the dough balls until the dough comes up around the edges of the shaper.  

Remove the shaper and the dough should leave a nice shell.  

Repeat for the remaining wells.  Prick the bottom of each crust with a fork and bake for 10 minutes or until just starting to brown.  

Let cool and remove from the pan to cool completely.

I was using left over dough from the freezer so I just used up all that I had left which made 34 mini tart shells.

For the Filling:

Combine the egg, cornstarch, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, and 1 lemon juice in a small bowl.  Whisk to combine. Set aside.  

Cut the cream cheese into small chunks, and set aside.

In a medium heavy bottom saucepan combine the water and sugar, stir and bring to a boil.  

Add a small amount of the boiling sugar water to the egg mixture whisking constantly.  

Add in the remaining liquid and then return the entire mixture back to the pan.  

Reduce the heat to medium low.  Add the cream cheese and stir until smooth I'm using a wooden spoon in this picture, you'll see I switch to a flat whisk, just start with the whisk, it worked much better. 

Then add the vanilla chips, the butter, and lemon zest to the pan and stir until melted and the mixture is smooth and thickened.  

Remove from the heat and cool completely.

Wash and prepare the fruit.  I like to slice the strawberries with an egg slicer, it gives nice evenly sliced fruit. After the filling has cooled transfer to a piping bag or like I like to use a gallon ziplock bag.  

Tie off the top and cut off the corner edge.  Pipe the filling into each shell.  I had exactly enough filling for my 34 tart shells.

If making ahead stop at this point and refrigerate.  Cover with a sheet of wax paper and can leave for several hours or over night.  

When ready to serve, prepare your whipped cream (make stabilized whipped cream if not eating immediately because it will melt).  Or you can cheat like I did today and used RediWhip from a can... Shhh, no one will know.  Pipe the whipped cream on top of the filling in each tartlet.  

Top each tartlet with 2 strawberries and a blueberry or as desired.