The word "tartlet" is nothing more than the diminutive name of tarta - French and Italian open pie. It is not clear who and when came up with these baskets from unleavened or shortcrust pastry, the author’s name was lost for centuries.
Now tartlets, as well as shuttlecocks and profiteroles, are popular with housewives. They are a win-win option for office feasts and receptions, perfectly decorate the table for a family celebration: they look elegant and elegant, and provided that you have ready-made baskets, they are easier to prepare.
Recipes for toppings for tartlets are striking in their variety.
The first group is mono-items. The basket is filled with any one ingredient, for example, red or black caviar.
The second group is the filling mix. A striking representative of such a filler is cream cheese with garlic.
The third group is salads.
Fourth - mousses and pastes.
And finally, julienne and hot snacks.
In a separate category, dessert tartlets can be distinguished, which are offered to guests at the end of the meal. Baskets of shortcrust pastry are filled in this case with cream or sweet fruit fillings, which are more like cakes.
Shortcrust Baskets
Before we begin to study recipes for toppings for tartlets, let's look at how to make a “stand” for a snack. If you have molds for baking small cupcakes (preferably silicone), then cooking will not take much time, and home baskets will definitely be tastier than a store product.
Break the egg and two additional yolks into a wide bowl. Season with a pinch of salt. Beat the mixture with a mixer. Add 180 g of soft butter, pour 300 g of wheat flour. Quickly mash the mass into crumbs. Knead lightly by shifting the dough onto a floured surface. You can’t work on it for a long time. The more diligently we knead the shortbread dough, the harder and more cured it will be when baking. We roll it into a layer, not very thin, 3-4 mm thick. We cut circles to the size of the molds, stack. So that the bottom of the basket does not swell, pierce it with a fork or put the beans, which will serve when baking oppression. If you plan to use a sweet filling for tartlets, recipes suggest adding a little sugar to the dough. We bake the baskets until golden brown, cool in the molds and fill with prepared minced meat.
Puff pastry tartlets
Crispy and airy, these baskets look very appetizing. Not all fillers get along with puff pastry. And if you are afraid that the baskets will turn sour, bake them with minced meat.
Here is an example of tartlets with a sweet filling, or rather with apples and nuts. 30 g cashews need to be coarsely ground. Peel two apples, cut fruit boxes, cut the flesh into cubes. Sprinkle the fruit immediately with a mixture of two spoons of cinnamon and one tablespoon of vanilla sugar. Shuffle.
Roll out the finished puff pastry in a thin layer. Cut the mugs with a glass. Grease the forms with vegetable oil. Lay the dough with your fingers to the bottom and walls. Put apples, sprinkle with nuts. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, send the tins to the oven and cook for about twenty minutes. When the baskets have cooled, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Tartlet filling: cheap and tasty
Despite the fact that such snacks are often served at banquets and official receptions, not all of them breach the family budget. Here is one of the recipes for cheap, but no less spectacular tartlets.
For 100 g of feta cheese (or a domestic analogue), you need to take a clove of garlic and half a spoonful of chopped dill. Baskets can be made from shortbread or puff pastry. Mash the cottage cheese thoroughly or wipe it through a sieve. Squeeze the garlic through a press, mix with cottage cheese and herbs. To make products not only tasty, but also beautiful, it would be nice to have a pastry bag with different nozzles. In the absence of such, you can use a simple plastic bag, in which we carefully cut the tip. Add the curd into a bag and squeeze the filling into the baskets in waves. We decorate each product with parsley leaves.
Ideas for simple toppings for tartlets can be quite original. We all love stuffed eggs. Why not fill the yolk with baskets instead of proteins? The latter can be finely rubbed and mixed with minced yolk. To prevent the filling from breaking up, it is fastened with mayonnaise and mustard.
Cheap tartlets
We continue to consider minced meat recipes for buffet canapes. Simple fillings for tartlets can consist of just two ingredients. For example, smoked fish and fresh cucumber.
From pink salmon or mackerel (200 g), remove the skin. We cut the meat and cut it into fibers. Remove the peel from the cucumber, grind it into cubes, mix with fish. We fill the mass with a large spoon of mayonnaise and a small - mustard. There should be a little sauce, because together with the juice of a cucumber, it can ferment a basket. The filling should be laid out on the tartlet just before serving.
Another idea is herring and beets. The ingredients are the most affordable and affordable. Cook one medium-sized beet until cooked in a peel. Cool, clean, grind with a grater. So that the basket is not saturated with liquid, put a small piece of salad leaf on its bottom. And so that he sat tight and did not move out, we lubricate the inside of the tartlet with mayonnaise. Carefully, so that she does not color the edges of the snack, spread the beets. We cut herring and cut the fillet into a cube, focusing on the size of the baskets. We lay the fish on top of the grated beets, decorate with dill greens.
Whip up tartlets
Dough baskets can be served not only as a cold and hot snack, but also as a dessert. In fact, these are the same sandwiches, they only look much more beautiful and tidy. As with canapes, even a child can cope with their preparation. Here are the available tartlet filling recipes.
Ready-made baskets and liver paste bought at the store - what could be easier? It seems to you that a tartlet filled with brown mass looks like a flowerpot with earth? Then we supplement this comparison. We plant two feathers of a green onion or a sprig of parsley in a flowerpot. Boil a few pieces of quail eggs. Peel and cut into halves. Stick a piece of egg into the paste. Next put half a cherry tomato.
Another recipe for tartlets that is easy to bring to life. Grease the finished baskets from the inside with herring oil. On the edge of each put a piece of salad. At the bottom of the baskets we place red caviar, filling the volume to the middle. In the remaining space we put a slice of lemon and a little fresh greens.
Tartlets with red fish, caviar or seafood
Above, we have given recipes for inexpensive basket fillers. It's time to consider the fillings for tartlets on the festive table. We will not trifle, expensive delicacies should go.
We put a frying pan on a small fire and spread 200 g of Dorblu cheese. When it is completely melted, add a pound of peeled shrimp. Shuffle. Pour juice from half a lemon. Squeeze out two cloves of garlic through a press. We cover the pan with a lid and let it simmer for two minutes. Pour a quarter cup of white table wine. We extinguish for some time so that the liquid has time to evaporate a little. Let’s cool the mass and fill it with tartlets.
Mistresses on the eve of the holidays are so busy that they don’t have time to prepare fanciful snacks, so stuffed baskets or shuttles will help them very much. The following recipes for toppings for tartlets on the festive table will make the banquet or buffet table unforgettable.
At the bottom of each basket we place a small piece of butter. On it we install a cone slice of salted salmon, smoked salmon or other red fish folded in a cone. We fill the confectionery syringe with cream cheese of the Philadelphia type. Decorate the edges of the baskets with flirty frills. We complement the decor with fresh herbs.
Tiny Buffet Tartlets
In most cases, finished baskets from fresh or shortcrust pastry are baked in cupcake tins. But sometimes on sale there are very tiny "thimbles", so the filling for small tartlets should be appropriate - coarsely chopped ingredients will stick out from the baskets.
It is best to use soft cheese or cottage cheese for the filling. Take 100 g of Philadelphia, mix it with the same amount of red fish fillet passed through a meat grinder. For such purposes, both salted salmon and smoked salmon are suitable. Finely chop a small bunch of dill. Mix all three ingredients. We take 100 g of butter from the freezer and quickly rub it into the filling for tartlets. Stir, put the minced meat in the refrigerator. Half a bell pepper of red color, wash, select all the seeds, cut the flesh into small cubes. Let's start the tiny baskets with minced fish, and decorate with slices of sweet pepper.
Pastes and Mousses
For miniature tartlets, the fillings should be creamy. It's time to consider recipes for mousses. With a reliable blender or food processor, you can make them in a minute. Here is the first recipe.
In a blender bowl we place 100 g of smoked red fish fillet, 200 g of Philadelphia cheese, a clove of garlic, 3-4 sprigs of parsley, a pinch of ground black pepper. Whip everything into a lush mass, simultaneously pouring lemon juice into the mousse (to taste). We start the baskets with the finished mass. You can slightly change the recipe and not add fish. Tartlets with cheese filling are decorated with several grains of red caviar or a slice of salmon.
Cottage cheese is an ideal ingredient for stuffing baskets. Here is the most basic recipe. Squeeze the cloves of garlic to the cottage cheese to taste, salt, and color with sweet paprika. A little, just to give the mass the ability to stick together, add lemon juice. Roll the curd filling for tartlets into balls according to the size of the baskets. Sprinkle finely chopped greens on top. You can complicate the recipe and add chopped olives or pickled cucumbers.
We add that mousses and pastes are best squeezed onto tartlets using a pastry bag, then even zucchini or eggplant caviar will look festive and elegant.
Salads
For receptions, when guests are forced to eat with their hands, serving meals in portioned baskets is a real salvation. But not all salads are suitable for being placed in tartlets. “Wet” dishes seasoned with vegetable oil or vinaigrette sauce are absolutely unsuitable for this purpose. A fur coat and similar complex salads with beets is not the best option. But the "Olivier", which got bored, will look in a new way in a basket of shortcrust pastry. Salad filling for tartlets with crab sticks will be just as ideal. This dry ingredient absorbs the liquid of other components, and the dough does not ferment. If you still have doubts about the moisture content of the filling, you need to make a “buffer” in the form of a salad leaf. It should be noted that the ingredients of salads for baskets need to be cut as small as possible, large sticking or hanging pieces make tartlets untidy and unappetizing.
Julienne
We have already mentioned that baskets are served on hot. Basically they are filled with julienne - mushroom, chicken, cheese. Serving in a basket eliminates the need to use a cocotte maker and cutlery.
Consider the recipe for julienne with mushrooms. The filling for tartlets is prepared like this. We clean a half of champignons, cut into slices. Finely chop the two onions and put them in a frying pan in vegetable oil. Add the mushrooms and continue cooking until the liquid evaporates. Add a glass of cream of 20 percent fat. Gradually add flour, constantly mixing the workpiece - julienne should thicken. We put them in baskets, set them on a baking sheet and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake in the oven until an appetizing ruddy "hat" is formed. Serve the dish hot.
Following the example of toppings for tartlets with mushrooms, you can cook chicken julienne. Instead of mushrooms, in this case, use a pound of slightly boiled chicken breast without skin.
Sweet fillings for tartlets: recipes
Since childhood, we all know the basket basket. But not only with a delicate protein cream you can fill tartlets. Here are some ideas for a dessert table.
In a small thick-walled pot we put 185 g of powdered sugar, 80 g of liquid honey and 25 g of butter. Pour a little less than half a glass of fat cream. Cook over very low heat. We do not use a spoon, just shake the pot. When the caramel is ready, immediately throw in it 250 g of coarsely crushed walnut kernels. Without waiting for the mass to cool, fill it with baskets.
Here is another filling recipe for tartlets. For children, it is perfect. Beat with a mixer 400 g of cottage cheese, adding icing sugar to taste and a bag of vanillin. When the mass becomes creamy, add two yolks. Beat again until splendid. We start baskets with cottage cheese cream. Peel and cut banana and orange, kiwi or other fruits into slices. We stick one at a time into the cream, sprinkle with grated chocolate or powdered sugar on top. You can use seasonal berries - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc.
Note that the tartlet does not have to be from the dough. Here is the recipe for a cheese basket.
Heat the pan, grease it with butter, pour grated cheese. When it melts and turns into a “pancake”, take it out and place it on the glass turned upside down. While the cheese is still warm and plastic, form the baskets with your fingers. For such an appetizer, the filling for tartlets with crab sticks, vegetables or a light salad is most suitable.
The design of baskets for a children's holiday should be approached with great care. After all, kids are more attracted by the appearance, rather than the taste of the dish. In this case, tartlets can be arranged as a basket with mushrooms or berries, a pot of greens, a nest with eggs, a boat with a sail made from a slice of ham, etc.
The adults are more impressed by the wealth of ingredients. But filling the whole basket with black and red caviar is too expensive a pleasure. Put on the bottom of the tartlet a piece of butter - cream or herring. Caviar accompanied by soft cheese is very tasty.
Now you know how to stuff baskets for different feast formats.