Strawberry-Rhubarb Tartlets

This weekend, we decided to take a chance on some tartlets.  So we got out our gear and consulted a few recipes and....off we went!

I have a recipe for mini-quiches that I love to use for parties.  They're made with puff-pastry and filling.  I also have a recipe for pastry cream that's delightful.  I have a recipe for a fruit tart (large) that involves a similar cream and a short crust.  But the vision I had was for mini-puff pastry shells with pastry cream and a fruit filling.  So many questions were unanswered: could I bake the cream in the puff pastry?  Or would it fall apart?  Would the puff pastry overwhelm the cream if the cream didn't fall apart?  should the fruit be added before or after?  Would there even be room for fruit?

My assistant was game for a challenge, so we threw all caution to the wind (knowing I could always pick up some baklava if things went terribly wrong) and we decided to give it a go the morning before a party. 

We prepared the crusts as we do for the quiches.

Scooped in some pastry cream and baked them until the pastry was golden brown, about 12 minutes.  They didn't have the neat flat form of a quiche, which left us wondering whether the sliced strawberries I'd prepared would stick.  Clearly, we needed glue.

It's strawberry season around here and we'd found some amazing local berries, along with some fresh rhubarb.  I love the tangy, bright flavor of rhubarb and we find excuses to eat vats of strawberry-rhubarb compote around here.  It's great on toast, mixed into yogurt (as we learnd in the yog-wich post!) and on top of cereal in the mornings.  Turns out it makes great glue, too!

We dabbed each of the tartlets with our compote and put some of the fresh berry pieces on top.  The tartlets were amazing.  The pastry was light and flaky, the cream held together well through the short baking time, puffing and setting nicely, and the bright berry toppings made the whole dessert a perfect finger-food addition to the party table.

Our compote is super-simple.

In a saucepan, combine:

4 cups of rhubarb stalks, ends trimmed off, chopped into 1/2" pieces

an equal quantity of strawberries, tops removed, large berries cut in half and

1/3 cup water

Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture softens and begins to simmer

reduce heat and cook for about 20 minutes, until the compote has thickened slightly and all the fruits have dissolved.

You can add sugar to taste, about halfway through the cooking, but depending on your preferences and your fruit, you may not need any. 

We keep our extras in the fridge, but I have no idea how long it lasts since we never make it more than a few days!