Cheese Tarts

Ingredients

Pastry

125g butter
65g castor sugar
1 egg yolk
250g plain flour
1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Filling

250g cream cheese
20g butter
60g castor sugar
1 egg

Method

Pastry
1. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence.
2. Add in egg yolk and water. Continue creaming.
3. Fold in flour and mix.
4. Wrap pastry in plastic bag and chill in refrigerator for 1/2 hour.
5. Roll chilled pastry to circular shape and cut with pastry cutter and line in tart molds.
6. Prick some holes on the base of the pastry using a fork. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes or when the pastry starting to turn yellow.

Filling (while baking pastry in oven)
1. Beat cream cheese, butter and sugar together till light, add in egg and beat till well mixed.
2. Spoon mixture mixture into baked tart shells.
3. Mix 1 tbsp cocoa powder with a small amount of water (I add bit by bit until I get the correct paste texture). Mix into a paste.
4. Dip the tip of a chopstick into chocolate paste and draw circle on top of the cheese.
5. Bake at 180°C for 10 minutes or when the pastry turned light brown.

Either my tart mold is too big or I made my pastry shell too thick, I'm only getting 11 tarts with the ingredients above (15 is the number suggested in the original recipe).



PS: best eaten when chilled.