mini pecan & amaretti tartlets

Around this time (early spring) of the year, in my yard I'll start to see hundreds of small holes on the ground. My husband said they're from squirrel digging, most probably looking for the food they hid during the winter. But the funny thing is, the squirrels can't remember where the food hidden, so they'd dig here and there. I'm a squirrel - manage inventory in the same manner. Yesterday I passed the pantry (with any trace of intention things won't show up you know...), I spotted some unshelled nuts, chestnut cream (be in the next post), gourmet cookies... time for clearance.

I'd continue to use a recipe from Flo Braker's. I've only read two of her cook books (published in the early 90) so far, quite technical, but not difficult. She's been teaching for so many years, she knows what make us stupid; she'd take us away from there to the next level. Leading us to next level is not a thing I find in some celebrity chefs nowaday, in my opinions.

Recipe: (yield 10 - 12 mini tartlets)

Filling recipe: I took this recipe as reference, and scaled down. Since I aimed for paste-like consistency, so I gounded the pecans, reduced a bit of sugar and replaced with a handful of amaretti, fine crumble. Plus some halved pecan as garnish.

Tartlet pastry dough's recipe: *adapted from Sweet Miniatures by Flo Braker*

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1/8 cup + 1 tsp sugar
• 1 stick (4 ounces) butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 1 small egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk to combine flour, salt and sugar. Drop in butter slices, use a pastry blend to cut them into flour mixture until they have the consistency of very coarse cornmeal.
• Whisk the egg and vanilla, add into the flour mixture, slightly knead as needed until the dough is formed.
• This step I'm very different from Flo's. She'd just pinch out some dough and press into tins. But I wrapped the dough, send it to fridge to rest for an hour. Then roll it to a 1/8-inch-thick flat sheet (in between rollings, sending back to chill and rest is required). Cut out the round circles and place them into pre-greased and pre-floured mini tart tray. *
• Pre-heat oven to 350F.
• Spoon the filling into tart dough, top with a halved pecan. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until light golden. When the tray is cool enough to touch, unmold, let the tartlets cool completely on rack.

Flo's note: either method you use to shape the dough, please complete one task before beginning another, e.g., first to complete pinching out all the individual dough (my way would be cutting all circles out), second, rolling all the doughs as a ball (N/A to mine), then finally to proceed shaping the dough to ensure it distributes evenly. Handling one movement at a time is easier and faster. You discover you own rhythm from the repetition.

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