Mini Blueberry Lavender Cornmeal Cream Tarts Recipes

Steps:

• Cream: Bring cream and lavender just to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, cover, and let cool completely. Refrigerate until well chilled, up to 2 days.
• Crusts: Pulse flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a food processor to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add yolk and ice water and pulse until dough comes together, then knead until very smooth and combined. Pat into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight.
• Let dough stand at room temperature until pliable. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a little more than 1/8 inch thick. Cut out 4-inch circles, gathering scraps and rerolling dough once. Fit into twelve 2 1/2-inch-diameter tartlet pans, making sides thicker than bottoms. Place pans on a rimmed baking sheet and freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake on baking sheet until golden brown, pressing down often on centers as they puff up, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.
• Filling: Pass cold lavender cream through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl. In a small bowl, mix sugar and vanilla-bean seeds with fingers until combined. Add to cream and whisk with a mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form. Dividing evenly, dollop cream into tart shells, top with blueberries and lavender, and serve.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425°. Crush half the blueberries. Sift together sugar and cornstarch. Add whole and crushed blueberries; toss until berries are well coated. Set aside., On a lightly floured surface, unroll crusts. Cut out six 4-1/2-in. circles; press circles onto bottoms and up sides of greased muffin cups. Evenly spoon in blueberry mixture. Cut out six 2-in. circles from remaining crust; place over filling. Brush with yolk., Bake until crust is golden and filling bubbles, 13-17 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes; run a knife around sides of muffin cups and remove tarts to a serving plate.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to fan 160C/ conventional 180C/gas 4. Lightly butter two 12-hole bun tins (no need if using non-stick). Beat the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon for a minute or two until soft and creamy. Mix in the hazelnuts.
• Put a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each tart tin. Bake for about 10 minutes until golden and risen slightly up the sides of each tin. Leave to cool in the tins for about 5 minutes or until the mixture is firm enough to remove, then ease each tart from the tins with a small knife and put on to a sheet of kitchen paper as the bases are quite buttery. (The tart cases can be made up to 1 day ahead to this stage and stored in an airtight tin in a cool place.)
• For the blueberries, put the sugar in a small pan with 1 tbsp water. Put over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, then turn up the heat a bit and bubble gently until syrupy, about 30 seconds only. Take off the heat and tip in the blueberries. Stir gently just to coat the berries in the syrup - you want to keep them whole - then leave to cool.
• Beat the mascarpone with enough milk to make a soft creamy mixture, a bit like whipped cream. Lightly stir in the lemon curd so it ripples - it looks nice if it's not fully stirred in. You now have a choice. For a teatime treat: Spoon a little of the mascarpone mixture into each tart case, then spoon over a few of the syrupy blueberries. For a pretty dessert: Spoon half of the syrupy blueberries into a bowl and set aside. Cook the ones left in the pan gently for a few minutes just to burst and soften the berries - you will get lots of juices. Using a wooden spoon, press them through a sieve into a bowl to make a sauce. Cool. Ripple a spoonful of the sauce into the mascarpone mixture, then spoon a little into each tart case. Pile the whole syrupy blueberries on top. Do this no more than an hour ahead - less on a warm day, as they soften. For each serving, put 3 of the tarts in the middle of a plate and spoon over a little sauce. Serve the rest of the sauce separately.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Make the crust and topping: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, confectioners' sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add melted butter, then use your hands or a wooden spoon to combine ingredients until no dry spots remain.
• Press half of the cornmeal mixture into a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom (alternatively, use a 9-inch cake pan or springform pan, lined with parchment), making sure the mixture is evenly pressed on the bottom and about 1/2 inch up the sides. (Using something large and flat, like the bottom of a measuring cup, will be helpful.) Reserve the remaining mixture.
• Make the filling: Toss blueberries, brown sugar, vinegar, flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Pour the fruit into the crust.
• Crumble the remaining cornmeal mixture over the blueberries, pressing bits of the mixture together into large clumps as you go, as you would with a crisp or coffee-cake topping.
• Bake tart until the blueberry filling is bubbly and thickened, and both the crust and top are nicely browned, 40 to 45 minutes.
• Let tart cool completely before slicing into triangles and serving. The tart can be baked up to 2 days ahead and stored tightly wrapped at room temperature or refrigerated (especially if your kitchen is hot or humid).