Mini Fruit Tartlets: 6 Steps to a Fresh and Colorful Mother’s Day Dessert

You are at the right place if you are looking for something fruity to create for your mom this Mother’s Day. Try these mini fruit tartlets for Mother's Day celebration from scratch by involving your siblings, family, and kids to surprise the mom who has always been there for you. These fruit tartlets take some effort, from making the base, to creating the pastry cream and pushing fruit into them, but they are well worth the effort.

Mini Fruit Tarts Recipe

Equipment

• 16 mini tart pans: 7x2-cm
• Ingredients

For the Pastry Cream:

• 1 ½ cups whole milk
• A strip of lemon peel
• 3 egg yolks
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Tartlet crust:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp lemon zest, finely grated
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• A pinch of salt

For the Glaze:

• 1 tbsp apricot jam
• Water, as needed

Fruit Topping

• ½ cup blueberries
• ½ cup raspberries
• 2 kiwi fruits

Instructions

Step 1: Making the Pastry Cream

1. Heat milk with a strip of lemon zest in a saucepan over medium heat. Heat only till the milk is steaming, then set aside.
2. Take a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks with sugar and flour until smooth.
3. Discard the lemon peel from the milk and slowly whisk the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture. The stir in the vanilla extract.
4. Pour the milk-yolk mixture back into the saucepan and heat over medium heat, and keep whisking until it comes to a boil and thickens. Reduce the heat and cook for 1 minute.
5. Pour the pastry cream into a bowl, let it cool a little, and wrap with a plastic wrap touching the surface of the cream. Let it cool for 15 minutes, then refrigerate.

Step 2: Making the Tart Base

6. Next, let’s make the tartlet crusts. Cream the butter first, then add the sugar and lemon zest and beat until just combined.
7. Beat the egg in a small bowl and add to the butter bowl until just mixed.
8. Work the flour and salt into the butter bowl using a wooden spoon to make a dough.
9. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead using your hands, lightly, until smooth.
10. Flatten the dough into a circle and wrap it in plastic to chill for 30 minutes.
11. Spray the mini tart pans with cooking spray. Then divide the dough in half and wrap the other half, and refrigerate it.
12. Roughly flatten the dough into a circle and dust it with enough flour to avoid sticking. Then roll it out between 2 sheets of parchment paper to ¼ inch thickness.
13. Peel away the top parchment paper and use a cookie cutter or knife to cut out circles perfect for the mini tart pans. Then prick the base of the tart 2-3 times with a fork to keep the crust from puffing up.
14. Freeze the mini tart pans for 30 minutes.

Step 3: Bake the Tartlets

15. Bake at 180°C in a preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until the tarts turn golden around the edges.
16. Once baked, remove the tartlets from the oven and set them on a wire rack to cool.

Step 4: Making the Glaze

17. Next, let’s make the fruit tart glaze: heat the apricot jam in the microwave and pass it through a fine mesh strainer.
18. Brush the apricot glaze on the fruit using a pastry brush. If the glaze is too thick, add a little bit of water to thin it out.

Step 5: The Fruity Touch

19. Wash and dry the blueberries and raspberries well. Then peel the kiwi fruits, and slice them lengthwise in half, and slice them further into half-moon slices.

Step 6: The Assembly

20. Spoon and flatten some pastry cream into the tartlet bases, keeping enough space for the fruit.
21. Arrange the fresh fruits on the pastry cream, pushing the fruit into the tartlet. Then brush with the glaze. Refrigerate until ready to serve.