mini-blueberry-cheesecake-tarlets?

this was the result of having a packet of fresh soft Philadelphia cheese that was crying to be used yesterday... i attempted to follow the blueberry cheesecake recipe offered on the cardboard carton but had to modify it because a) i didn't have any sour-cream and didn't want to go to LUNDs to get it, b) i couldn't bring myself to make the biscuity base from scratch because it was nearly 10pm and c) i found a box of ready-made mini tartlet crusts on my kitchen shelf which i have been saving for a random treat...

this is my sketchy recipe, concocted on the spot... so perhaps there's something else which might be missing... oops!

INGREDIENTS:
- 1 packet of (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
- 1 wee tub of Danone French Vanilla jogurt
- 1 large free-range brown egg
- 1 teaspoon of bourbon vanilla essence
- approximately 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries, thawed, strained and pureed
- a handful of thinly chopped almond slices

after mixing the soft cheese and jogurt, mix in the egg (the whole thing) and the vanilla essence. you ought to end up with a nice smooth creamy thick emulsion. dullop about a spoonful of the mixture to each empty tartlet crust that has been hibernating on a flat baking sheet, just enough to fill not-quite to its brim. then using a pair of chopsticks (if you will!) add a little lump of the pureed blueberry into the middle of the creamy filling of each tartlet. sprinkle or artistically place a few almond slices on the top and bake in a preheated oven (to 350degF / approximately 200degC, methinks!) until the cheesy filling looks just golden brown or that the crust is golden brown (approx. 20mins perhaps!). remove from the heat and let the wee tartlets cool and breathe... chill (for about 2-3 hours) before serving... over-a-cuppa... of course! haha.

... because i wanted to share it with my colleagues at the office/lab, i had made a promise to myself (a while ago when i discovered about it, and whenever i can help it) not to forget one of them who is allergic to wheat which is the main ingredient of the mini tartlet crusts... and since i had some creamy mixture left, AND! a box of scottish Walkers Oatcakes, which are wheat-free, i attempted to make a small portion of crust-base using my hand-me-down bric-a-brac ceramic japanese tea-cups as containers because i don't have any tartlet moulds...

carefully crushing a wee sub-pack of the oatcakes (maybe there were 5 oatcakes in there?) in a small ziploc with a wooden spatula, i added about 2 teaspoonsful honey and approximately a wee knob of unsalted butter of thickness 2x the size of my thumb (maybe?)... but it looked and felt rather grainy still after adding the honey and butter so i dumped the mixture into my small nifty Braun food-processor to blend it and that did the trick. i layered each of my wee teacups with a little sheet of aluminium foil and then pressed the blended crumb-mix to the inner sides to make a crumb-base 'container' for the creamy filling... then i repeated what i did before wrt the filling and bake these 4 other random wheat-free versions of the tartlets while i cleared up the mess in the kitchen!

the idea of using the little ceramic teacups seemed to work fine... and everyone at work seemed to like the randomness too... and best of all, just as i was vexing about it because of my hay-fever symptoms, i have been trying to avoid diary products in the hope that i might feel a little bit more alive, i used up my cream-cheese! phew.

posted by ~overacuppa~ on Tuesday, 18 April, 2006 at 23:11 hrs