Cheese Tarts / 乳酪挞 / チーズタルト

Cheese tarts with strawberry jam filling and not-so-pretty crust, baked last Friday for teas over the weekend. I do not have any tart or small muffin moulds, those uneven crust shapes were products of inappropriate mould used. Regardless the appearance, they tasted beautiful!

I combined two different recipes to bake these tarts, the crust recipe was from Sweet Potato Tart and cheese filling recipe was from New York Cheesecake. Lynn from Another Cup of Sugar invited me for her Food Fest Contest few days ago, I am bringing some cheese tarts over to her food fest. Since the rules say the post has to include detailed recipe so here you go...

Ingredients (12 pcs):

Pastry:
60g butter, room temp
40g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
120g all purpose flour
¼ tsp vanilla essence

Filling:

125g cream cheese
40gm castor sugar
30ml milk
1 small egg
30ml sour cream
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tbsp cake flour, sifted

Strawberry Jam (optional)

Methods:

1. Pastry: Beat together butter and sugar until creamy. Add in egg yolk and vanilla essence, and mix well. Add in flour gradually and knead briefly to form soft dough. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for later use. If it is too soft to work with, keep in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Filling: In a large bowl, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, and then mix in egg, mixing just enough to incorporate. Mix in sour cream, vanilla and cake flour until smooth.
3. Assemble: Roll out pastry into 5mm thickness, cut and place/fit the pastry into greased tart mould or small muffin tins (use the size of pastry cutter that is suitable for your mould). Fill each pastry with cream cheese filling to the almost full level. Place ½ teaspoon of strawberry jam in the middle and use a toothpick make pattern if desired.
4. Preheat oven to 175ºC and bake tarts for 20 minutes.

Do not like this combination? Check out my mini cheesecake recipe.