Puits d'Amour

Traditional Mauritian cream tarts

Prep Time 2 45

Cook Time 15

Bake Time 30

Total Time 3 30

Course Dessert

Cuisine Mauritian

Servings 10 tarts

Calories 366 kcal

Start by making the tart crust. Put the bowl of your food processor or stand mixer into the fridge for 20-30 minutes to chill.
After 30 minutes, add both flours, baking powder and cubed butter together, to the chilled bowl of your food processor or stand mixer.
1¾ cups plain flour, ½ cup cake flour, ¼ tsp baking powder, 225 g unsalted butter
Mix until combined. If you are using your hands, mix the flours and baking powder together well, then add the cubes of butter. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the dry ingredients. You should end up with a mixture that looks like breadcrumbs. Be careful not to knead or over mix. We do not want dough yet.
Add 2 tbsp of cold water to the mixture and then mix to form a soft dough.
2 tbsp water
Roll the dough into a ball and then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate until firm. This can take anywhere between 20 minutes to 1 hour.
Roll the refrigerated dough into a 1-1.5 cm (½ inch) thickness. Then cut out the dough with a cookie cutter.
Gently place the dough into the tart mould and trim the excess dough around the edges.
Place the tart shells into the fridge and allow to rest for another 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the pastry cream for the filling. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the mixture is a pale yellow colour.
2 egg yolks, 40 g sugar
Sift the plain flour and the corn flour together into the egg and sugar mixture. Use a spatula to mix until you get a smooth paste.
25 g plain flour, 1½ tbsp corn flour
Add the milk to a saucepan and heat it on a medium heat with the vanilla bean. Turn off the heat just before it boils.
1 cup milk, ½ pod vanilla bean
Very slowly add the milk to the egg mixture while making sure you keep whisking. This will stop the eggs from cooking.
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, and continue to simmer on medium heat while rapidly whisking.
The mixture will start to thicken as it cooks. When you are having trouble whisking the mixture, this is a sign that it is ready. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Pour the pastry cream into a bowl and cover with cling wrap. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350˚F) and take the tart shells from the refrigerator.
Using a fork, put little pin-prick holes in the centre and the bottom edges of the tart shell dough. Line the tart shells with baking paper and pour some baking beads into the bottom. This is important as it helps to keep the pastry in shape as it bakes. (See our useful recipe notes for alternatives if you don’t have baking beads).
Bake for 30 minutes until the tart shells are golden brown. Then remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Add the thickened cream to your stand mixer and whip into soft peaks. You will know you have soft peaks when you remove the whisk and the cream does a little ‘bow’.
¼ cup thickened cream
Use a whisk to mix the whipped cream with the pastry cream. The filling should be smooth and free from lumps.
Once the tart shells are sufficiently cooled, remove them from the tart moulds and line them on your bench.

Dollop a generous spoonful of pastry filling into the tart shells, sprinkle with desiccated coconut, then top with half a glacé cherry. Alternatively, for a more professional finish, you can use a piping bag to pipe the cream filling into the tart shells before sprinkling with desiccated coconut.
5 glacé cherries, desiccated coconut

An easy trick to get the ½ cup cake flour is to add 1 tablespoon of cornflour in the bottom of a ½ cup measure then fill in the rest of the space with all-purpose flour.
Baking beads are very useful for blind baking to get perfectly-shaped pastries and tarts. If you don’t have baking beads on hand, there are a large number of alternatives that you may have in your kitchen already. You can use rice, dried peas, lentils, beans or other pulses.
If I’m running low on time, I usually buy the shortcrust pastry from the freezer section of my local supermarket to use for the tart shells and the tartlets turn out just as delicious!

Keyword Four, Gato Franse