Christmas tarts with dried apricots, almonds and Marsala – recipe of the week

Recipe from Profumo di biscotti
Text and photos by Rossella Venezia

 

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Resting time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

For 12 tarts

Dough:
100 g flour (00)
25 g cornstarch
75 g cold butter cut into cubes
Ice water as needed

Filling:
2 small apples or 1 large one
80 g dried apricots roughly chopped
30 g slivered almonds
90 g brown sugar
The seeds from 1 vanilla bean
4 teaspoons of Marsala

In a small bowl combine the flour and the cornstarch with the butter and blend until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
Add ice water, one tablespoon at a time, mixing  just until the dough can be gathered into a ball. Cover the dough with cling film and refrigerate it for  30 minutes.

In the meantime, peel and core the apple(s), dice and mix with the chopped apricots, the slivered almonds, the brown sugar, the vanilla and the Marsala.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C (355° F).

Remove the dough from the freezer, place it between two large sheets of baking parchment and and roll it out quite thinly (2-3 mm) With the aid of a round cookie cutter, cut out 12 discs (approx. 7 cm/3 in. in diameter).  With another cookie cutter cut out 12 stars.

Fit the discs into the buttered imressions of a muffin tin, fill each with a heaping teaspoon of the filling and top each tart with a “star”.

Bake for  15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool briefly before removing from the muffin tin.

The tarts may be stored up to 4 days in the refrigerator.