Raspberry and Apricot Tarts

There is something about rusticity in food which always attracts me, like rustic charm of puff pastry and I'm a total devotee of it:) The pre-rolled puff pastry in my freezer which thaws out so swiftly is one of my favourites. You may have to pay little for the privilege of having your own pastry rolled for you. But I'm not complaining as long as it has the perfect thickness for making tarts or pies of all shapes and sizes with all kind of fillings whether sweet or savoury.

This weekend when we got a big packet of raspberries from weekend farmer’s market, which were the best one I had it in years. They were juicy, sweet with a hint of tanginess. Although I got them for making crumble I ended up stuffing in puff pastry which was perfect for our lazy Sunday. They were crunchy with sticky-syrupy fillings. And best thing is they require very less preparation time. This is my entry for Trupti’s Little Chef’s in Kitchen (err… am I late?).

Raspberry and Apricot Tarts

Ingredients:
A roll of Puff Pastry
Sugar
Raspberries
Dry Apricots
Little butter
Raspberry/Apricot Jam for glazing
Icing Sugar

Raspberry and Apricot Tarts

Method:
Preheat the oven at level 5.
Thaw the pastry as instructed and roll them on floured surface.
Sprinkle sugar (according to how sweet you want) on the pastry surface and roll them a little.
Cut them into squares using sharp knife.
Grease the cup cake tins and place the pastry sheets giving them desired shapes. If required cut out the excess sheets or leave as it is as it gives the rustic look.
Place 4-5 raspberries, apricot and drizzle more sugar on top and add little unsalted butter on top and bake them for about 15-20 minutes till puff pastries turn brown and crisp.
Cool them little and transfer to serving dish and glaze them with jam.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Raspberry and Apricot Tarts

What is puff pastry?

The key to using puff pastry is knowing what it is and how it works. There are four main ingredients in puff pastry: flour, butter, salt, and water. No leavener. So what makes it rise up so high and fluffy? It's the way these ingredients are combined and their reaction.

Once it comes together is when the true labor begins. The dough is rolled around a thick slab of butter. Through a process of folding, turning, and rolling, the butter is dispersed throughout the dough creating hundreds of very thin layers of dough separated by a film of butter.

Raspberry and Apricot Tarts

The butter layer is what causes the rise. When the pastry is heated, the butter melts and boils, creating steam which lifts the successive layers higher and higher. At the same time, the heat is cooking the flour, hardening it around those minute air pockets, creating the puff. Puff pastry expands 6 to 8 times its pre-baked height. Puff pastry is known as Pâté feuilletée, in France and is used in the making of Napoleons, palmiers, croissants, allumettes, turnovers, en croute dishes, pithiviers, tartes tatain, beef Wellington, bouchées, and vol-au-vents.

(Source: www.homecooking.com)

Raspberry and Apricot Tarts