Vanilla Malt Cheesecake Tarts

Breaking the rules and putting malt powder into cheesecake instead of a milkshake! 471: Vanilla Malt Cheesecake Tarts

I’m not a huge jam-on-toast person but I couldn’t resist getting several jars when we stopped at a jam stand on our roadtrip to Acadia National Park. I obviously got blueberry (when in Rome) but also snagged a jar of chokecherry jam which I’d never seen before.

The gently alarming name comes from how sour the raw fruit is. Once cooked, the tannins break down and let a mellow cherry-like flavor take center stage. I’m going with “mellow” because I didn’t get a ton of flavor from the jam, more a pleasant sweetness with a slight cherry aftertaste. C’est la vie!

Happy to report that we finally have a working oven again – phew! But I did get the baking bug a few times while we were waiting, so these tart shells were baked at my mom’s house. After its lackluster performance with the chocolate tahini cookies, I didn’t trust my sad little toaster oven to do the job. It was the push we needed to finally get a new toaster oven though, which thrillingly can actually bake a cake in a pinch! I’ll post about said cake next week.

The first design iteration, before I went a little crazy with the piping bag.

Freezer stash of pâte sucrée is the gift that keeps on giving.

Finally happy with how thin the shells are! Less cookie-like and more elegant. I’m not sure how many tartlet bakes it took me to be brave enough to roll them thinner but we got there in the end.