Mascarpone Tarts

 Every school holidays, I meet up with some of my lovely friends, old colleges, from when I worked in pharmacy. I bring them lunch, and some sort of treat. Last time I visited I took choc-musli biscuits, which, although they were delicious, after showing them some pictures from my blog, they insisted that I make something 'yummy' for the, next time.
I was flicking through some old 'Better Homes and Gardens' magazines and found these little tartlets, that seemed really easy and looked delightful.





Ingredients:
Pastry
- 1 3/4 cups plain flour
- 1/3 cup pure icing sugar
- 185g unsalted butter, chopped
- 1 egg yolk (keep the egg white for glazing)
- 1 tbsp iced water
- 1 tsp vanilla essence

Filling
- 200g mascarpone
- 1/4 cup caster sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 punnet small strawberries, sliced


Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius. Put flour and icing sugar in a food processor, process to combine. Add the butter and process again until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Put the egg yolk, water and vanilla essence in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

2. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and process in short bursts until both come together to make a pastry. Remove and knead gently to form a ball. Wrap in baking paper and chill for 15-20min.

3. Roll out the pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper to 4mm thick. Cut out rounds using a 5cm round cutter, and ease the rounds into muffin tins. Brush each tart with egg white and prick with a skewer. Bake for 15-20mins or till golden and crisp. Stand on a wire rack to cool.

4. Put the mascarpone, sugar and vanilla essence in a small bowl and mix to combine. Spoon mixture into cold pastry cases, top with strawberries.