Pooh Bear Cheese Tart

Piglet: "How do you spell love?"
Pooh: "You don't spell it - you feel it."

Cheese tarts that will melt your heart. It did for me. Too cute to be eaten. 

 

This one looked worried.

This one looked determined.

 

Make some and enjoy with people dear to you.

Happy Valentine's day!

Pooh Bear Cheese Tarts

(makes 12 tarts - 7cm in diameter)

Ingredients: 

Tart shell:
270g organic unbleached all purpose flour

3 Tbsp icing sugar

136g unsalted butter, cold

1/4 tsp salt

2 - 4 Tbsp milk, cold

Cheese Filling:

(adapted from Whisk n Fold)

250g cream cheese
150g mascarpone cheese
40g Parmesan cheese (I used a 36 months aged cheddar cheese)
80g butter
200ml fresh milk
100g icing sugar, sifted
2 eggs
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg yolk to brush on top of filling

Steps to cheese tart:

• Sieve flour, icing sugar and salt together. Rub cold butter into flour mixture with fingertips until butter is well distributed.
• Add milk into the mixture and knead mixture until it forms a dough.
• Flatten the dough into a round disk, cling wrap the dough and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
• Roll out the dough to 4mm thick and cut using a 4" round cutter. Line the tart moulds, I used a regular 12 holes muffin tin, with the cutout pastry then prick the pastry bottoms and place a muffin liner on top of each pastry, filled with beans, and blind bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F) for 13 - 15 minutes.
• For the Pooh bear ears, I used the excess dough and cut out with the back of a pipping tip to form 24 round disks and bake with the tart shell but they only require 6 - 8 minutes of baking.  
• Remove muffin tin from oven and remove the muffin liners and beans. Let tart shells cool in the muffin tin.
• In a saucepan, heat up milk, cream cheese and aged cheddar or Parmesan cheese over low heat. Stir constantly until all the cheeses melt.
• Remove saucepan from heat and whisk in butter and sugar, tempered the eggs with some of the cheese mixture before whisking it into the saucepan. 
• Stir over low heat until mixture thickens to coat the back of the spoon.
• Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and vanilla extract.
• To ensure the cheese mixture is smooth, you may want to pass the mixture through a sieve. (Optional)
• Cool the cheese filling in the fridge for at least 1 hour. 
• Pipe the cheese filling into the cooled tart shells
• Brush the surface of the cheese filling with a beaten egg yolk and bake at 200 degrees C (400 degrees F) for 10 - 12 minutes or until a skin forms on the surface of the filling.
• To assemble Pooh bear face, use the tip of a knife, cut a slit in the cheese filling and insert the round disk of cookie to form the ears.
• Melt some chocolate and pipe in the details of the Pooh bear face.

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