Tartlets

Historians credit the ancient Greeks as the originators of pie pastry. After the Romans conquered Greece, the recipes traveled throughout the known world via the Roman roads, with fillings adapted to local food menus.

Tarts by definition are large, open shallow pies, tartlets being their diminutive brother. Tart recipes first began appearing in print in Medieval English cookbooks, a time when cookbooks started appearing for the general household and not just for professional cooks.

By this time, pies and tarts were commonly used as a vessel for carrying savory meat and honey/fruit/nut fillings; but it was the “lidless” tarts which became the cooks’ favorite medium to splash bright colors and varied textures across the extravagant medieval banquet tables. In regards to extravagant, did you ever wonder where the nursery rhyme that starts “. . . four and twenty black birds baked in a pie” originates?

Although The Sweet Specialist does not have live black birds flying from her tartlets, her “sweet favors” are offered here. The Sweet Specialist would like to credit Linda Stradley as the information source author, and direct you to her web site What's Cooking America for more wonderfully rich food chronicles.

Current Tart Selection Include:

Grenoble Tartlets: 4"size
Walnuts and pecans baked in a carmel filling provide a sweet and chewy treat.

Double Chocolate Cream Cheese Tartlets: 4" size
A crisp, bittersweet chocolate and cream cheese shell cradling a soft, sensuous chocolate-cream cheese center-- somewhere between a molten cake and a brownie.  White chocolate flecks accentuate these double dark delights.

Double Chocolate Cream Cheese Tartlets: 2" size
That same double chocolate delight in a petite 2-inch size come packed eight (8) to the box.

Shortbread Tartlets with Lemon Glaze: 2" size
Two different classic tastes come together for one specialty shortbread delight-- rich, sandy-textured shortbread with a silky, mouth-puckering lemon glaze.  Boxed by the dozen.

Almond Tartlets: 4" size
Almonds married in a heavy cream and sugar topping provide an almond version of the Grenoble Tartlet for those serious about their almond treats.

Snickerdoodle: 4" size
That same classic pecan pie favorite in a delicate cream cheese shell.