Servings: 8 Prep: 30 min Cook: 40 min Total: 1 hr 30 mins
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I whipped up some carrot pies and absolutely fell in love with the pie crust. I made some minor tweaks, just to clean up the appearance and eliminate the sweetener. I wanted a savory hand-held tart, perfect for any social gathering.
What I made were delightful little mini-pies. Each crustlet has some herbed mushroom duxelles lining the bottom. This has a few dried cranberries plunked into it, then crumbled fresh goat cheese. Finally, some bacon bits! A nice and simple little collection of flavors.
I should add that these reheat VERY well. If you’ve got a party you’re attending, make them the night before, chill them, package them and bring along a cookie tray, wherever you’re going. Pop them back in the oven just before serving and you’ll form yourself a nice little collection of tartlet fans!
Note: Makes 24 little tarts. Recipe intended for 3 tartlets per person, for 8 people.
Goat Cheese, Mushroom and Cranberry Tartlets
Print RateIngredients
Almond Pie Crust
- 2 cup almond flour
- 1 tbsp tapioca flour
- 1 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 each egg white
- 1 tbsp melted butter
Tartlet Fillings
- 1 lb cremini or button mushrooms washed
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup sweet red onion very fine dice
- 4 each garlic cloves minced
- 1 tbsp fresh chopped sage divided
- 1/4 cup red wine good quality
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries coursely chopped
- 1/2 cup bacon bits
- 3/4 cup goats cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F (177 C).
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, tapioca flour, xanthan gum, and salt.
- Once the dried ingredients are well distributed, add the egg white and melted butter. Mix until combined and a dough has formed.
- Roll the dough into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Set aside for 30 minutes.
- While the dough relaxes, make your Mushroom Duxelles. Finely chop the mushrooms, until they are very finely diced. This can also be done in a food processor. It's not uncommon for me to use a cheese grater for mushrooms, also. The idea is to get the mushrooms very very small, but not a puree.
- In a pan over medium heat, melt your butter. Add your garlic and onions. Sweat them until they are aromatic and starting to become translucent. About 2 or 3 minutes.
- Add the chopped mushrooms to the pan. Add a flavorful amount of salt and pepper to this mixture. Also add half of your fresh sage.
- Cook the mushrooms for about 5 minutes, or until all the water begins to release from the mushrooms. The mixture will become almost "soupy". At this point, add your red wine.
- Continue to cook the mushrooms, until they are almost a paste. Set aside to cool.
- Grease a sheet of parchment or wax paper. Place the doughball in the center of the paper. Grease a second sheet and place it above the dough. Roll the dough out until it is about 1/8-inch thin (3.2 mm).
- I have two small Teflon pans (12-cups each), which I used for this. However, this could just as easily be done in a traditional 9-inch (23 x 4 cm) pie pan. For the smaller pan, using a large cookie cutter or the lid for a round food container or bowl (something that is slightly larger than the diameter of the mini pie/tartlet pan). Test one before cutting all your rounds. Be certain the size is correct. Then, using your cookie cutter or other round object as a guide, cut out roughly 20 small tartlet rounds. Combine the remaining dough, roll it out again and cut out at least four more rounds.
- Grease the mini pie mold. Gently press each dough round into the mini pie mold.
- Place a heaping teaspoon (7 mL) of the duxelles into the base of each tartlet cup.
- Add 1/2 tsp (5 mL) of chopped dried cranberries to the tartlets.
- Add 1 tsp (5 mL) of bacon bits to the tartlets.
- Add 1 1/2 tsp (8 mL) of crumbled goat cheese to the tartlets. Season with a small dash of salt and pepper.
- Bake the tartlets until golden, roughly 25 minutes. Garnish with a small blast of fresh sage.
- Serve hot!
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Awesome, amazing flavor. As a pretty darn good home cook and low-carb eater for more than 15 years, I rarely find anything on a low-carb food blog I don’t already know how to do. This site has been surprise after wonderful surprise.
The shells have an incredible flavor and mouthfeel, but do you have any tips for handling the crumbly dough? In the pictures here, it’s clear you made the dough work as shells. I used parchment above and below and rolled very carefully but had to give up after one mini-muffin tray–I sort of pressed pieces together in them because no amount of care kept the circles intact–and just sprinkled bits and crumbs into the remaining one (still yummy but not pretty). Or would an addition like vital wheat gluten help with the elasticity of the dough? Thanks!
Just to chat with myself for a bit, in case anyone else (non-celiac) is reading along…I made a new batch today with some vital wheat gluten added. Advice about proportions is somewhat scant, but for 2 cups of almond flour I added 1/2 cup of gluten, a few drops of water, and bumped up the egg white to one whole egg. After a rest it was still too crumbly to work with, so I threw it back into the mixer with a bread hook, added another tablespoon of melted butter and a more significant splash of water, and let it rest again. The result wasn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good. Next time I’m going to try cutting the butter back to the original recipe–the dough was a bit greasy–and reducing the vital wheat gluten to 1/4 cup.
Hello.