Mini tart ideas?

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I went to a pampered chef party recently the lady demonstrating had some great ideas for min tarts - I'm so useless I can't remember any of them. My ds - almost 5 loves to cook and the dd's will want to join in too, so I wondered if you lovely ladies have any ideas. The easier and child friendlier the better.

I usually buy 2 rolls of ready rolled puff pastry, you can fill it with anything from jam to cheese or marmite or even cinnamon sugar or try chocolate. Cut out size and shape with cookie cutter, making two for each tart and seal them with a bit of milk or beaten egg. Usually bake for about 15 min at 220degrees.

Did you buy the mini muffin tin to do the tarts in? With the special pusher to squash the dough?

I luurve mine.

Oh yes dingdong I did which is why I'm hacked off that I can't remember any of the ideas. I'm looking forward to using it after school with the dc's.

Just had a cheese and onion quichlet I made at the weekend. So simple to make but better eaten warm imo. Delia's recipe.

With mine I do:

tiny bit of pesto, 1/2 cherry tomato, cut side up, topped with a bit of parmessan;

small amount of cream cheese and dill - take out of oven 5mins before done and put more cream cheese and small piece of smoked salmon in.

Chutney topped wiht goats cheese

Try the childrens section in Peacocks. There's plenty of mini tart ideas in there. Beleive me

Oh...sorry. This is the recipe section.....

OrmIrian

Mistlethrush/NAB - sounds fab, thank you.

Any more?

It makes fab mini mince pies, I put a half pecan/walnut or some flaked/whole almond on top to stop it burning.

Great for mini quiches, but have no recipes -I'm a 'see what happens' type cook!

What are your DCs fave things to eat?

I use cake release (lakeland) to help them slip out to save prising out with a knife and damaging tin.

depends what your kids are into. jam/lemon curd/chocolate spread work well.

mince pies work well as well - I have the minni cookie cutters and the star shaped one is good for the lid iykwim?

Great idea about the cookie lid, I think I have some that'll do the same.

The kids are into everything sweet and unhealthy! I think what you're all saying is just give it a go and experiment. It's going to be messy here later!

caramelised onions topped with goats cheese
blue cheese with pears and walnuts
smoked salmon and asparagus
roasted tomatoes and thyme
roasted peppers and black olives
leek and stilton
leek and potato
salmon and chive

Cheese and Onion Quichlets
Makes 10

For the pastry
2oz wholewheat flour
2oz self raising flour
1oz margarine
1oz lard (I left this out, no difference)
salt & freshly milled black pepper

For the filling
1/2oz butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1.5oz strong cheddar cheese, grated
3fl oz milk or cream
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard pepper
cayenne pepper

Pre-heat oven to gas mark 4, 350F or 180C

First make the pastry (are you using ready made? If not, shout and I will type out)

Roll out the dough and, using a 3 1/4 ince plain cutter (8cm) cut out rounds. Use the rounds to line a patty tin. (or if you are like the rest of us, a bun tray)

For the filling, melt the butter in a small pan and soften the onion in it over a low heat for about 10-12 mins. Leave to cool, then put a little onion in the base of each tartlet and a little grated cheese on top. Whisk together the milk, egg and mustard powder and season to taste, then spoon some of the liquid carefully into each tartlet.

Bake in the centre of the oven for about 30mins, then top with a light sprinkling of cayenne pepper. These can be served hot or cold.

will email my PC lady and get the reciepes sent to me and will post on here later. we do a lovely ham and cheese one and also a chocolate crunch one but equally as good for mini crumbles etc.

this is a good mini tart

I am a PC lady!

Another one not very suitable for dcs - use cookie dough instead of pastry, for filling mix tub of creme cheese with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a slug of Baileys. Ideally pipe in using the 'Easy Accent Decorator' - as you get nice shaped filling that way!

For any of you not knowing what the mini muffin tin and special pusher is, you get a really heavy duty non-stick tin with 24 mini bun shapes and a wooden tart shaper. You stick your pastry in the bottom of the bun tin and squash it with the wooden shaper. Ds loved doing this from 14mo. Much better at it now (2.7) Means that everyone thinks you've spent ages rolling out little circles and sticking them in, but in reality I can do 24 mini-mincepies in 5 mins.

Please let me know if you're interested - got sale on at the moment and can do free postage to you on orders above £50 - lots of CHristmas present ideas...

Grateful for all the fab ideas. PC is good stuff although my plan to make tarts with the dc's had to be put on hold as we had another three kids to play and 6 dc's cooking is just toooooo much for me to deal with.

I remember there was something about using chocolate buttons?

mmmmmm the baileys one sounds yummy!

OK - we had a go this afternoon and it was a success! All three children had really enjoyed themselves and so did I except for the clearing up (we were making gingerbread cookies too). I have to say the mini muffin tin with pusher thingy works so well, takes all the bother of rolling, cutting etc away and no I promise I'm nothing to do with PC. The pusher did get stuck a bit, but I got into the habit of flouring and all was well.

We tried slices of mars bar - yum
white choc buttons - yum
jam - yum
cheese & cherry tom - yum
cheese & ham - yum
cheese & pesto - yum

Ok not very healthy, but good quality time and yummy. DH is away at the moment, but I'll wow him with some of the more 'grown up' versions tomorrow.

Thank you all for your ideas.

Had another suggestion last night - do pastry cases as normal in minimuffin tray - then put a rolo in and cook. When you bring them out of the oven, put a white chocolate button on top...