Strawberry Pie Tarts

     Happy Tuesday Interneters! So Valentines day is coming up... and what I have for you has nothing to do with Valentines Day. Unless you want to use it for a Valentines party, I suppose. I have a recipe for you today, and if you're the kind of person that likes pie crust as much as the filling or more, you're in for a treat. Without further ado: Strawberry Pie Tarts.




What you will need:
Food Processor
Stove
Various Measuring Tools and Spoons
Water Spritzer
Sauce Pan
Mini Cupcake Pan

Ingredients:

Powdered Sugar

Pie Tart:
4 3/4 Cup Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/2 Table Spoon Zest (Lemon, Lime, or Orange it depends on your tastes)
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 oz. Unsalted Butter (Cut into cubes) 
1 1/2 oz. Crisco (Also cut into cubes)

Strawberry Sauce: 
1/2 Cup Water
1 Tablespoon and 1 1/2 Teaspoons Cornstarch
1 1/4 Cup thawed and cut-into-small-pieces frozen Strawberries
1/4 Cup and 2 Tablespoons Sugar

Directions:

Pie Tart:

Place the flour, sugar, salt and zest (I used orange because I already had some laying around) into your food processor and pulse several times. Now add your Butter and Crisco and continue to pulse until it becomes crumbly. Now spritz (If you don't have a spritzer, flicking water with your fingers should work OK) the mixture a few times and pulse. Repeat this until you have a texture like this:

that you can shape it like this: 

There are countless variables that can change the amount of water needed in this step so you just have to keep spritzing, pulsing, and checking. Once you have the right texture go ahead and stick the dough in the fridge while you prepare the strawberry sauce.

Strawberry Sauce:

Stir the water and corn starch together in the saucepan. Add the strawberries and sugar and put on medium-high heat. Stir constantly for about 10 -15 minutes. You are done when the corn starch has made your mixture thick. You may want to go ahead and preheat the oven at this point to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Chill the sauce, and when chilled it should look like this:

Baking and Finalizing:

Get your pie crust dough and shape into flat circles shown in a picture above. It should make about 2 dozen tarts, but if you want there to be a lower percentage of the crust as compared to the filling you may want to make these smaller and will have more.  Place this circles into a greased mini cupcake pan. Using your thumb shape the circles into little bowls. It should look like this:

Place them in your oven preheated to 375 and bake for probably 9 to 14 minutes. There are many variables so it's difficult to give and exact time, but you should be able to tell that the bottoms are browned and the tops should be fairly firm. Allow to cool before removing to avoid breaking the tarts. They should look like this:

 Roll the tarts in powdered sugar 

and top with a dollop of the strawberry sauce and pow! You're done! 

     Also note that the Tart part of recipe is simply pie crust so double the recipe and you have an awesome pie crust!

     Try the recipe out, tweak it, and tell us what you think!

-John Watson