Delightful mini fruit tarts or tartlets with cream cheese filling and lots of berries. A very easy to make dessert, perfect for any kind of celebration.

fruit tartlets with raspberries and blackberries

These miniature tarts are too good (and pretty) to be true!

Berries of choice and a creamy, wonderful cream cheese filling. Fresh and fruity, if it wasn’t for the pie shells that hold everything together, you wouldn’t even know that you were eating cake.

How to make mini fruit tarts?

Making pastry for tarts might seem like a difficult task, but it really isn’t. Especially if you have a food processor, which makes the whole affair a joke. And a kitchen scale is pretty important too, it will make sure that everything goes well.

Actually a super easy recipe, a tart shell recipe I use most of the time. You can fill the shells not only with this delicious cream cheese and fruit filling, but also make white chocolate raspberry tartlets, blueberry tarts, lemon curd tarts or any kind of mini-tarts or pies you like.

You can use the same recipe to make one pie shell for a regular-sized pie as well.

Roll the pastry, place it in a pie tin and bake blind at 180 degrees Celsius/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 -25 minutes until golden brown.
Remove the beans and the paper and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes if the shell doesn’t have the right color yet. Let cool and fill.

Tart shells:

Make sure that the butter is very cold when you add it to the rest of the ingredients, you can even chop it in small pieces, place the pieces on a plate and the plate in the freezer for 10 minutes.
Place the flour, sugar, lemon zest, and salt in the food processor, pulse to mix.
Add the very cold cubed butter, and process until the mixture is crumbly, you should still have some small butter pieces visible.
Add the yolk and the water and mix shortly until the dough comes together.
Turn the pastry onto the working surface and knead lightly, for just a few seconds, to form a smooth disc. Divide the pastry into two portions, wrap each portion in plastic foil and refrigerate until needed.

how to make pastry shells for fruit tarts

If you make the pastry without the food processor:

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the cold butter cubes and cut the butter into the flour with a knife or mix with your fingertips.
Add the yolk and the water and mix shortly until the dough comes together.
Your hands should be cold when handling the pastry and you should only use the fingertips and not the palms of your hands.
To make sure that the hands are cold, hold them under cold water and dry them.

how to blind bake pastry shells for mini tarts

Filling:

Mix the cream cheese with a whisk to loosen it up.
Add crème fraiche, vanilla, and icing sugar and whisk until the cream thickens again.
Fill the cases with the cream and arrange the berries on top.
Dust with icing sugar if you wish.

Can I use bought pastry?

Of course, you can use bought sweet pastry. Roll and bake as instructed.
You can also use ready-made pastry shells as well.

Can I make the tartlets in advance?

First of all, you can make the pastry in advance and refrigerate it for up to one week or freeze it for up to one month. I had it frozen for longer as well, it was still great.
And you can definitely make the tart shells one day in advance. Let them cool and keep them at room temperature until ready to fill.
The filling can be mixed a few hours in advance. Keep it in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until ready to use.
You should only fill the tartlets with the filling and top with the berries shortly before serving, up to 3-4 hours would be fine.
Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

The recipe was adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s book “The Cookbook”. He used mascarpone instead of cream cheese, but I prefer cream cheese, it tastes lighter and fresher.