Mini Tarts Are So Exquisite

Now that I have some of the Pampered Chef items that I never intended to buy (such as the mini tart maker), I thought I'd try them out so I'll know what to expect.

I googled mini tarts and this was the first one that popped up. Amazingly fast to make and sooooo delicious.  Sadly, mine do not look so gorgeous but they taste gorgeous and I learned my lesson about letting things cool.

So, in a very rare scenario in my kitchen, I took frozen, store bought pie crust and set it out to thaw.   I don't EVER have pie crust waiting in my freezer like that but back when I was trying to horde gas points, I bought a bunch because they were going to double my points.

But then my sister stole my points and I was left with boxes of frozen pie crust to wallow in for months.

I read in one of the Pampered Chef cookbooks that you could use this measuring cup to cut the perfect size for the tart pan and I was amazed at how well it worked.

Pardon me, I looked up the tart pan on my website and it turns out  that it's called a Deluxe Mini Muffin pan.  Tomatoes, tomatoes, tarts, muffins.  Whatever.

I am so rockin' the Pampered Chef lingo.

I bet they have NO IDEA you can also roll your leftover scraps with it too!  You know me, I can't rest with one idea, I just have to keep seeing what else I can come up with.  This is that really cool measuring cup you can use for peanut butter and crisco and all that sticky stuff that never comes out of your measuring cups.

So, then you take the magic little wooden pusher thing and push the circles into the tart pan.  Again with the proper verbiage.

Wow,  it was like I was a gourmet chef.  The recipe actually had a crust you make yourself, but I wanted to see if the whole refrigerated crust idea would work, so I had to imagine what the baking time would be.  I baked them at 450 because the box said to, for a about 8 minutes because I said to.  Maybe a minute or two more.  I suggest peeking often or those suckers will burn!

 
So cute, I want to make like 50,000 of them! 

I did not wait anywhere near long enough for the custard to cool, and then adding fruit to them made them tip and get really ugly.

But it was the taste that counted and WOW.  Very excellent.  Although I am kind of done with pie crust.  I would rather have had a shortbread crust, maybe.

What do you do with your little muffin pan things that make little tart shells?  Ideas are welcome!!