This is another recipe or version of it I have seen in German cooking magazines over the years. I love the idea of making fruit tartlets for spring and not having to rely on fresh fruit.
These apricot flower-shaped tartlets would be a great idea for Mother’s Day, or your next breakfast or brunch gathering. They add a beautiful touch to any spring or summer entertaining table.
These tartlets are super simple to make. Using a cookie cutter, flower shapes are cut out of a simple dough, placed in a muffin or cupcake tin.
The creamy filling consists of creamy quark, sugar and pure vanilla extract. An easy cheat recipe for quark is included below.
Place a freshly peeled or canned apricot half on top, bake and serve. Tada! Creamy apricot goodness delivered to your mom or guests in a flower form.
Ingredients:
- 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter.
- 1 + 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar plus extra for decoration
- 2 large eggs, divided
- 1 can of apricot halves or 6 fresh apricots
- 1/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup quark (recipe follows)
- Cut the unsalted butter into little pieces. Place in a mixer and add the all-purpose flour, salt, powdered sugar and one egg. Combine everything thoroughly.
- Form the dough into a ball. Cover the dough ball with plastic cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- If you are using fresh apricots: wash the apricots and pat dry. Carefully halve and peel them. Discard the pit. For the canned apricot version: Drain the apricots. Reserve the nectar for future use, if desired.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining egg, white granulated sugar, vanilla extract and the quark.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease a muffin or cupcake pan.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and turn it out on top of a lightly floured work surface. Roll out the dough.
- Use a 4 inch in diameter flower shaped cookie cutter to cut out flowers.
- Place each dough flower in the greased muffin pan, gently pushing the centers flat to the bottom of the well. Depending upon the size of the wells in your pan, to make room for the “petals” you might have to place them in every other well.
- Use a toothpick or fork to poke holes in the bottoms of the dough.
- Place the pan in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove the cakes from the oven. Fill each with the quark, egg, sugar mixture. Place an apricot half on top of each cake, flat side down.
- Return the cakes to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven. As soon as the cakes are cool enough to handle, transfer them to a wire cooling rack fitted over a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
- Let the flower cakes cool completely and sprinkle with powdered sugar for decoration.
- Arrange on a decorative plate and serve.
- 5 ounces ricotta cheese
- 1 ounce of sour cream
Place the ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Makes 6 ounces or 3/4 cup.
