Sweetheart Tarts

Many months ago, in honor of  our first married Valentine’s day, I set out to bake these yummy treats for my beloved hubby.

Upon sharing our Valentine’s Day plans with the hive, I received more than a couple of requests to share the recipe and am happy to finally oblige.

*The Filling

Homemade Blueberry Filling from Scratch

(using supplies I had on hand, feel free to make changes)

What You’ll Need:

• 1 bag of frozen blueberries
• 1 cup of sugar
• water
• lemon

1. Place blueberries, sugar, lemon (to taste), and water (just covering blueberries) in a pan and set to high.
2. **Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer on a low boil 30-60 minutes.  Your filling is ready when it’s nice and thickened (a good way to test this is by dipping a spoon and removing it…if the filling coats the spoon with minimal dripping it should be thick enough)

**Note: If you want to hurry this process along you can use a thickening agent like starch or gelatin.

*Time Saver Tip:  Alternatively, to save on time and effort, you could easily purchase pre-made pie-fillings at your local grocer.  I even used cold hot fudge (for sundae topping) that I had on hand as an additional filling and it was delicious!

While, your choice of filling is happily simmering, and thickening up to ooey-gooey deliciousness, prepare your crust.

*The Pastry Crust

What You’ll Need:

• flour-2-1/2 cups
• egg yolks-2 small
• butter-3/4 cup
• sugar-1/4 cup
• salt-1/2 teaspoon
• ice water-4-6 tablespoons

First, you need to make the butter and sugar mixture…

Blend the butter and sugar mixture until light and fluffy.

Next, you’ll need to beat the yolks and add them to the butter mixture while alternating with the flour and salt.

Mix/blend dough with pastry blender while slowly adding the ice water until it forms a “crumbly”-looking mixture.  Once it gets to this point you can roll it up into workable balls (you will need to work with a floured surface and hands to prevent sticking).

Once, your dough has chilled and your filling is ready you can go ahead to the next steps of rolling and cutting the dough, and filling the tarts.

Now, you can either pop these beauties in the oven at 375 degrees as is, or brush them with a nice egg wash and add some colored sugar for fun.  I chose to do both!  Bake until the edges are golden brown and allow to cool slightly before moving them off the pan.

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