What a month it has been. My hosting server was hacked. My hosting account shut down (thrice!). My phone died. My computer faced its own set of confusion and woes. Any self-respecting California girl would throw up her hands, call it Mercury retrograde, and spend the rest of the day cuddling with crystals. Alas, Mercury is not retrograde and I happen to prefer my astrology not at all. (I knowwww! I used to be a yoga teacher and errythang! What happened to me?! That’s a story for another time.)
Because now, at the end of a week that was all about me learning it’s ok—like REALLY ok—to ask for help, I decided to throw up my hands and make these gorgeous little mini tarts.
They won’t remove malware on your hacked hosting account, they don’t know how to reboot the software on your sick little iPhone, and they damn well haven’t got a clue as to how to fix the enduring problem of race and class in America (listen to this, if you haven’t already), but they do have a way of soothing a ravaged soul.
These adorable little numbers are super fun to make with friends, and proved to pair brilliantly with champagne, which my culinarily attuned friend Chad brought by on a whim. Chad readily assumed his role as Chief Tart-Accessorizing Officer, and advised that I add as much mint as humanly possible and finish them with olive oil and sea salt. I followed his orders to a T, and every single tart was consumed within 15 minutes of our arrival at our friends’ housewarming barbecue.
They’re absurdly easy to make—the only prep you have to do is make the dough an hour ahead of baking (laced with cardamom and vanilla bean, no less!). Swirl some honey into rich Greek yogurt, slice some fruit and mint, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and now, yes, now you can go cuddle with your crystals.
*Word to the wise: It is, in fact, much more difficult to artfully decorate mini-tarts than one might think. I assumed it was going to be a breeze of the first degree, but it took much more surgical precision to arrange the fruit slices and tiny mint leaves exactly as I wanted. You have two choices: You can either eschew my obsessive tart art in favor of your own post-modern garnishing whimsy, or you can be prepared to take a bit of extra time to place each objet just so. If you take the latter route, know that you may need to use the edge of a knife (or even tweezers?! omg tweezers) to tuck mint and figs as you like.
FIG, MINT & NECTARINE MINI YOGURT TARTS.
Ingredients
tart crust (modified from Williams Sonoma)
- 1 ¼ cup flour
- 1/3 cup confectioners sugar
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- ¼ tsp ground vanilla bean
- 10 tbsp (1 ¼ cup) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces.
- 2 egg yolks beaten
- extra flour for rolling
tart filling
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 large nectarine
- 6 large figs
- 6 sprigs fresh mint
- olive oil to drizzle
- flaky sea salt to garnish
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, sea salt, cardamom, and vanilla bean. Add diced butter, and mix into dry ingredients using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, just until butter is in pea-sized pieces and beginning to make the mix a bit sandy looking. Add egg yolks and continue to mix until dough comes together and has a sandy texture. Divide into two pieces and pat into even 5" rounds. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
- While you wait, get out your muffin tins. I used regular sized non-stick muffin tins, which easily released the tart shells without any extra greasing. The recipe is ideally intended for mini-muffin tins, but it worked just fine with full-size.
- After an hour, remove disks of dough from fridge and preheat oven to 400º. On a lightly floured surface, roll out disks of dough one at a time to ¼" thickness. Use a 3" cookie cutter (or a 3" diameter water glass, like I did!) to cut 16 circles total. Transfer each circle immediately to the base of a muffin tin, gently pressing to ensure even contact with the bottom and sides of the pan. Feel free to consolidate and re-roll dough as you go, but remember that the closer to room temp it gets, the more difficult it is to work with!
- Bake for 18-22 minutes, until just golden brown. Remove from oven and let rest on a cooling rack at least 15 minutes. Then lift tart crusts from pan and leave them to cool further on the rack.
- While they cool, gently swirl a tablespoon of honey into one cup of Greek yogurt and leave in fridge until ready to fill tarts. I like leaving a few ribbons of honey in the yogurt as opposed to fully mixing it in. Slice figs and nectarines into thin wedges and slices, respectively.
- Remove yogurt honey blend from fridge and spoon evenly into tart shells. Garnish with a few figs and a couple nectarine slices on each tart. Add mint leaves liberally—the fruit tastes so good with pops of cooling mint.
- Finally, drizzle lightly with olive oil and add a tiny sprinkle of sea salt on each. Let set in the fridge for 30 minutes, and serve immediately!
