Mini Fruit Tart Canapés with Creme Patissiere

These mini fruit tarts make the perfect bite-sized canapés.  Pretty and delicious, they really have the wow-factor to impress your guests. Make them ahead of time and assemble them in minutes with my store cupboard secret – ready made canapé cases.  

Mini Fruit Tarts 

I love making food for friends and canapés are great fun to make, as they allow you to play with so many different flavours and look gorgeous laid out at a gathering. They also help to minimise the washing up, as there should be no need for individual plates! 

Remember that the perfect party food must be no more than one mouthful. Otherwise, it is just too awkward to juggle a drink and food. Don’t be tempted to forget about dessert when serving finger food. These easy-to-make fruit tartlets always steal the show.

Crème pâtissière (creme patissiere, crème pât, confectioner’s custard or pastry cream), gives your tarts a real wow factor and makes you look professional. However, this delicious sweet filling is much easier to make than you might think. You can make it in advance and then put the tarts together just before your guests arrive. It only takes about five minutes to assemble 50 of these little beauties. 

The recipe makes enough for 24 generously filled tartlets. Take the pressure off when preparing for a party by buying ready-made pastry cases – my top secret. Choose thin and crispy bite-sized ones.    

Ready Made Canapé Cases 

Life really is too short to make canapé cases, you can if you want to, but I find that good shops ones are far better than anything that I could make.  Thinner, lighter, crisper and properly bite sized. 

My preferred brand is Rahms mini croustades, which come in boxes of 24, and are available from several of the UK supermarkets, but frustratingly stockists seem to change all the time.  Price is around £2.50 for a box of 24. 

My advice is to buy some when you see them and stock up as they have a relatively long shelf life. 

How to Make Mini Fruit Tart Canapés with Creme Patissiere

Creme patissiere is a staple of the pastry kitchen. Despite the fancy name it is very easy to make with a good electric mixer. Just follow the instructions and your fruit tartlets will be a triumph!

Step One – Assemble the ingredients for the creme patisserie. Sift the flours. Separate the eggs and measure out the sugar, flour, cornflour and vanilla. 

Step Two – Put the flour, cornflour and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Add the egg yolks. 

Step Three – Whisk together until the mixture is pale, light and creamy.

Step Four – Mix the milk and vanilla in a saucepan. Heat very gently on a low setting. Stir until the liquid is just simmering. Don’t let it boil over. 

Step Five – Add one third of the milk and vanilla to the egg and flour mixture. Leave the rest of the milk in the pan, off the heat. 

Step Six – Whisk the liquid into the egg and flour until well combined. 

Step Seven – Now add the flour mixture to the pan with the rest of the milk. Heat very gently. (I do this on the lowest heat on a diffuser plate.) Stir and scrape down the sides and bottom of the pan all the time to make sure that the mixture is evenly heated and well combined.   

The creme patissiere will thicken very quickly. If you get lumps, remove from the heat, scrape the sides and bottom of the pan and whisk with an electric whisk until smooth again. 

Step Eight – Test the consistency using a kitchen spoon or spatula. The custard is ready when it thickly coats the back of the spoon, and you can make a track through it that doesn’t disappear immediately. When you are happy with the consistency, allow it to cool.

Storing Creme Patissiere

Creme patissiere will keep in the fridge for two days after making. Either store it in an airtight container (press a layer of cling film onto the surface to stop a skin forming) or in a disposable piping bag sealed with a clip.  

To Assemble the Tartlets

Assembling these mini fruit tarts is so easy with the help of a disposable piping bag. You can use this to store the creme patisserie in the fridge until you are ready to assemble your tartlets, cutting down on mess on the day of the party.   

There is no need for a piping nozzle with these bags. Simply snip off the pointed end of the bag when you are ready to fill the cases. 

Step one – Fill a piping bag with the chilled creme patissiere. I find the easiest way to do this is to turn back the top of the piping bag and stand it in a jug.

Step two – Lay out the pastry cases, making sure you give yourself room to work. 

Step three – Fill the cases with the creme patissiere. Leave a little space at the top so that the fruit can sit just inside the rim. 

Step four – Top each tartlet with soft fruit. Garnish with chopped mint leaves. Serve immediately.

Hints & Tips for Creme Patissiere

• If you don’t have full fat milk use (semi) skimmed with a splash of cream.
• You get what you pay for with vanilla. I like the paste, but you can also infuse pods in the milk for a few hours before starting to make the creme patissiere. Always use vanilla extract. Avoid vanilla essence, which uses artificial flavours.
• Use a silicon spatula when heating the creme patisserie. Keep scraping the sides, corners and bottom of the pan, as the custard will be thicker closer to the heat.
• Creme patissiere thickens quite fast. If lumps form, just whisk again.
• Creme patissiere gets thicker as it cools so don’t be tempted to carry on heating past the recommended point.
• This creme pat keeps for two days in fridge. To minimise mess on the day of serving, pop straight into a piping bag and store in the fridge with the end clipped. When you are ready to fill the mini fruit tarts, snip off the end and go. Alternatively, store in the fridge in a box or bowl with cling film pressed to the surface of the custard to stop a skin forming.   
• Freeze leftover egg whites for meringues and macarons. Use a scrupulously clean air tight container and make sure that you don’t get any egg yolk in with them. Alternatively, you can use them fresh for a low-fat omelette.

Hints & Tips for Mini Fruit Tart Canapés 

• Canapé cases are your best friend. We love the light, thin ones – crunchy and bite sized. Canapés must be bite sized.   
• You can glaze your fruit tartlets with apricot jam – but we prefer them without it is also quicker to skip this step. 
• Serve with some fresh mint leaves for flavour and appearance. (You can dust them with a little icing sugar if you like.) 
• Assemble within an hour of serving for best effect.
• Make them more special by brushing insides of canape cases with melted chocolate. (Do this in advance, when you make the creme patissiere.) With the chocolate lining you can assemble these a couple of hours before you serve, as the chocolate coating stops the canapé case becoming soggy.   

100 Hundred Years of KitchenAid

I made my creme patissiere using the KitchenAid hand mixer, part of the Queen of Hearts 100 year limited edition collection in the new passion red shade, which references the iconic KitchenAid red. Using a hand mixer makes these glamorous mini fruit tarts a breeze to make, so I really do feel like the Queen of Hearts!

My Queen of Hearts mixer is a good-looking machine with both a double beaters option and a single balloon whisk. I found the balloon whisk especially good for gentle whisking as the custard thickens, giving just the right amount of gentle stirring without working the custard too much. The seven speeds available really helped here too.

There’s more to the range than this handsome mixer: you can equip your kitchen with Blender, Hand Blender, Hand Mixer, Kettle, Mini Food Processor, Stand Mixer and a Toaster.

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5 from 12 votes

Mini Fruit Tart Canapés with Creme Patissiere

Delicious sweet canapés that are easy to make. Make creme patissiere beforehand, and use bought pastry cases. Assemble and serve on the day.

Servings: 24 tarts

Author: Helen Best-Shaw

Prep Time10 mins

Cook Time20 mins

Assembly10 mins

Total Time40 mins

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients

Creme Patissiere

• 250 ml full fat milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 3 egg yolks
• 45 g caster sugar
• 10 g plain flour
• 10 g cornflour

Tartlets

• 24 mini pastry cases
• soft fruit

Instructions

To Make the Creme Patissiere

• In a saucepan on a low heat, warm the milk and vanilla. Heat gently until the liquid is just simmering.
• In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and flours with an electric whisk until pale and creamy.
• Add one third of the hot milk mixture to the egg, flour and sugar. Whisk together.
• Add the resulting mixture to the rest of the milk in the saucepan. Heat gently, stirring all the time until the custard is thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon.
• Allow the custard to cool. Store in the fridge, either in a piping bag or with cling film pressed to the surface, until you are ready to assemble the mini fruit tarts.

To Assemble the Mini Fruit Tarts

• Fill the tart cases with the creme patissiere.
• Top the tartlets with soft fruit. Garnish with mint leaves and serve immediately.

Notes

Hints & Tips for Creme Patissiere

• If you don't have full fat milk use (semi) skimmed with a splash of cream.
• You get what you pay for with vanilla. I like the paste, but you can also infuse pods in the milk for a few hours before starting to make the creme patissiere. Always use vanilla extract. Avoid vanilla essence, which uses artificial flavours.
• Use a silicon spatula when heating the creme patisserie. Keep scraping the sides, corners and bottom of the pan, as the custard will be thicker closer to the heat.
• Creme patissiere thickens quite fast. If lumps form, just whisk again.
• Creme patissiere gets thicker as it cools so don't be tempted to carry on heating past the recommended point.
• Creme patissiere keeps for two days in fridge. To minimise mess on the day of serving, pop straight into a piping bag and store in the fridge with the end clipped. When you are ready to fill the mini fruit tarts, snip off the end and go. Alternatively, store in the fridge in a box or bowl with cling film pressed to surface of the custard to stop a skin forming.   
• Freeze leftover egg whites for meringues and macarons. Use a scrupulously clean air tight container and make sure that you don't get any egg yolk in with them. Alternatively, you can use them fresh for a low-fat omelette.

Hints & Tips for Mini Fruit Tart Canapés 

• Canape cases are your best friend. We love the light, thin ones – crunchy and bite sized. Canapes must be bite sized.   
• You can glaze your fruit tartlets with apricot jam – but we prefer them without.
• Serve with some fresh mint leaves for flavour and appearance. (You can dust them with a little icing sugar if you like.) 
• Assemble within an hour of serving for best effect.
• Make them more special by brushing insides of canape cases with melted chocolate. (Do this in advance, when you make the creme patissiere.) 

Nutritional Information

• This recipe is 1 Weight Watchers Smart Point per portion

• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.

Nutrition Facts

Mini Fruit Tart Canapés with Creme Patissiere

Amount Per Serving

Calories 35 Calories from Fat 18

% Daily Value*

Fat 2g3%

Saturated Fat 1g6%

Cholesterol 25mg8%

Sodium 6mg0%

Potassium 16mg0%

Carbohydrates 4g1%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 2g2%

Protein 1g2%

Vitamin A 49IU1%

Calcium 15mg2%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Course: Canapé

Cuisine: British

Keyword: mini fruit tart

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Recipe for mini fruit tarts sponsored by KitchenAid.  We also received a hand mixer for review, all opinions our own.