Pastry Party One or...What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Well... the little vacation I seem to have had from dear Bloggity, anyway.

At center, fudge brownies with a rosette of chocolate ganache. From center left, raspberry mini cheesecakes. From center right, blackberry mango tartlettes and plain mini cheesecakes.

The blackberry mango tartlettes were much more impressive in person. They were a soft purply-peach color with that glistening sliver of fresh mango on top. I made the mistake of buying frozen filo tartlette shells for this and the filo really overpowered the delicate flavor of fruit and cream in the filling. I have the opportunity to try again because my client was so impressed with this display she ordered again when I delivered these beauties.


This is me doing the happy pastry chef dance.


Blackberry Mango Cream Tartlette Filling
I simply folded a few tablespoons of my homemade blackberry mango jam plus a few tablespoons of mango puree into sweetened whipped cream and piped into purchased filo shells.


Sour Cream Mini Cheesecakes
Crust:
2 cups graham crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter (I use salted because salty and sweet complement each other so well), melted

Filling:
20 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 cups sour cream
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Fill mini muffin cups with papers.
In a small bowl, combine graham crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Place 1 teaspoon of mixture in each muffin paper and press down. Bake 10 minutes. Cool.

Reduce oven temp. to 250 degrees and place a baking pan of hot water in the oven on the lowest shelf.

In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat sour cream for 10 seconds. Add the cream cheese and sugar and mix on low for 30 seconds then turn up to medium. Scrape the bowl.

In a separate container, combine vanilla, eggs, yolks and heavy cream. With the mixer on medium, slowly pour the liquid mixture in. When half of it is incorporated, stop and scrape. Continue adding the mixture until the rest of the ingredients are incorporated. Once completely combined, scoop (about a tablespoon each) into the cooled crusts.

Bake at 250 degrees for 35 minutes. Turn off oven and allow cheesecakes to cool for 1 hour before removing. Then refrigerate. Makes about 100 mini cheesecakes.

These are really delicious plain. I tried adding a bit of raspberry jam to some before baking, which resulted in sunken middles. Still delicious, but not very appealing to look at.
If you don't have pans for 100 mini cheesecakes, simply bake in batches. The cheesecake filling refrigerates overnight very well. Or, make some mini and some larger individual cheesecakes with regular size muffin cups. Bake those 50 minutes before turning off the oven.

I'll attempt a pastry crust of some sort for the next round of blackberry mango cream tartlettes and hope that it turns out well.