Mini tarts filled with pastry cream and jam

If you are looking for an original recipe for a birthday , a Carnival party or even, why not, for a special celebration like New Year’s Eve,  these mini cakes filled with pastry cream and jam  will surely surprise everyone.

If you decorate them with colored noodles, mini clouds or edible confetti they will delight the little ones , but their filling is equally irresistible for all ages. Pss, a secret… If you add a couple of tablespoons of cava to the dough for the sponge cake and the dough for the pastry cream you will give it a particularly festive touch for adults, obviously if you prepare them for a children’s party  skip this step and they will be equally delicious.

The good thing about these mini cakes is that you don’t have to prepare each cake base separately, we are going to make a large sponge cake dough  in the oven tray and from there we will get all the bases for our mini cakes, then we only have to fill them with the pastry cream , decorate them to our liking and ready, we have time to prepare the rest of the party or sit down to wait for the guests.

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Recipe for Mini Tarts filled with pastry cream and jam

Ingredients for the cake:

• 5 Eggs
• 130 g azúcar
• 130 g Harina
• 1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch of salt

Ingredients for the pastry cream:

• 1/2 liter of milk
• 40 g of fine corn flour (corn starch, Maizena)
• 125 g sugar (about 8 level tablespoons)
• 50g butter or margarine
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 vanilla pod

For the filling and decoration:

• 80 g raspberry or strawberry jam
• To decorate: colored noodles, mini clouds , etc.

How to make mini tarts filled with pastry cream and raspberry jam

We make the cake base:

• To make the cake that will serve as the basis for our mini cakes, preheat the oven to 180 degrees heat up and down. With electric rods, beat the eggs together with the sugar and the vanilla essence for about 5 minutes at maximum speed.
• After about 5 minutes, gradually add the sifted flour and salt. Mix with enveloping movements to prevent the eggs from falling and continue beating for about 3 more minutes until it triples its volume and the dough acquires a creamy consistency.
• On a baking tray, put parchment paper and spread the dough all over the tray, flattening it with a spatula. We put the tray in the oven for about 12 minutes and after this time we check that the cake is done by poking it with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, remove it from the oven and let it cool. Once cooled, cut the cake into circles using a round mold about 7 cm in diameter or a glass. Depending on the size of the cake and the mold, we will get approximately between 12 and 16 cake bases for our mini cakes. Here you can choose whether to make mini cakes with 2 or 3 floors, if for example you have 12 round bases you can make 4 cakes with 3 floors or 6 cakes with 2 floors. We reserve the sponge bases while we make the pastry cream.

We make the pastry cream:

• To make the  pastry cream  , put the milk and the vanilla pod together with the seeds that we will have previously extracted, in a saucepan over the heat and bring to a boil. We remove and reserve. Once warm, strain the milk, removing the vanilla.
• In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar with a whisk until smooth. We dissolve the fine sifted cornmeal to avoid lumps. We can also dissolve it before in a little cold milk and then add it to the whole mixture.
• Slowly add the milk together with the Cornstarch, stirring constantly. It is important that the milk is only at room temperature so that it does not cook the yolks with its temperature.
• When we have the mixture ready, we put it on a slow fire. Remove to prevent sticking and wait for it to thicken. When you get the desired consistency, remove from the heat and add the butter at room temperature.
• Pour the pastry cream into a sleeve, close it with a tong and reserve in the fridge.
• We take the sponge bases that we will have left to rest and we begin to decorate them with mounds of pastry cream. To do this you have to cut the tip of the disposable pastry bag or use your favorite nozzle if you have a pastry bag with nozzles . You press carefully so that you get balls of pastry cream of the same size and we fill only the edge of the cake base. You fill the hole that remains in the center of the bases with your favorite jam, in this case we have added raspberry jam. If we are going to make mini 3-tier cakes, we repeat the process once more with another sponge base and put one base on top of the other. Finally, the base that goes on top of the mini cake is completely filled on top with more mounds of pastry cream, covering it completely , and we will have our first mini cake ready. Now we just have to repeat the process for the rest of the cakes or if we want something simpler we can make the cakes with only 2 floors.

We decorate the mini cakes

• To finish decorating our mini cakes you add your favorite decoration, we have added some colored unicorns and mini clouds or marshmallows , but you can let your imagination run wild. You can also put some stars on top of the mini cakes or any decoration you can think of depending on the event.

And what do we do with the leftover cake?

The pieces of cake that are left over from the dough can be made into crumbs and made into desserts with the rest of the pastry cream and berries. In some glasses for dessert you are making layers with the sponge cake, the pastry cream and the fruits of the forest and you already have a wonderful and delicious dessert.