Strawberry Tarts and Pineapple Mini Choco Pie

Hello Everybody,

Hope all are fine and staying indoors for our own safety !!

In this 'ible i'm gonna walk you through the journey of making mini chocolate based pie ... haven't heard that before.. wait it gets more interesting with a tropical fruit filling. Along with tarts or hand pie stuffed with delicious strawberries... hmmm yum. Why did i combine these two recipes. Pie means its always classic apple or pumpkin or blueberry. I wanted to make something different in different flavours so i choose pineapple and strawberry. Also i have never seen a pie dough with cocoa in it, so i wanna try that.

For Choco pie dough

1) All purpose flour - 1 cup

2) Unsweetened cocoa powder - 1/4 cup

3) Butter - 110 grams

4) Sugar - 1 tsp

5) Cold water - 2 tbsp

6) Salt - 1/2 tsp

For hand pie / tart dough

1) All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup

2) Butter - 110 grams

3) Sugar - 1/2 tsp

4) Cold water - 2 tbsp

5) Salt - 1/2 tsp

Pineapple filling

1) One medium sized pineapple (300 grams)

2) Brown sugar - 1/2 cup

3) Corn flour - 3 Tbsp

4) Lemon juice - 1/2 Tbsp

5) Butter - 1/2 Tbsp

6) Salt - a pinch

Strawberry filling

1) Strawberry - 100 grams

2) Brown sugar - 3 Tbsp

3) Corn flour - 1 Tbsp

4) Lemon juice - 1/2 Tsp

5) Butter - 1 Tsp

6) Salt - a pinch

Sift the all purpose flour through sieve and discard lumps if any. Add sugar and salt

Butter should be cold as much as possible and you need to cut them into cubes

If you have a food processor its damn easy, since i don't have that i tried different methods. First hand blender with whisk.. not recommended, pieces are flying

Again hand blender with another hook, no big change

Finally i have to whisk them manually, to mix the dough and butter to get along.. you start noticing the small butter chunks

Add 1tbsp cold water make sure there no ice formed in that, give it a swirl again add 1tbsp. Check the dough when you take and hold it should form a shape i.e., it should hold together. After that don't add water

Use your hand and rotate all the crumbs into one ball of dough. It should not be sticky, it shouldn't crumble down into pieces. Then your dough is perfect

Flatten it little bit, put in a plastic wrap I didn't i have those so i put inside piping bag and closed it well

Refrigerate

Mean while let's prepare the filling

Chop the strawberry into cute little pieces

Add brown sugar, cornflour, salt and butter. Mix them well

Chill it for 2 hours. I kept it for overnight.

Unwrap, put the dough disc on a lightly flour covered surface cut into half, Add some all purpose flour and keep the roller and push it. Give force in all direction to expand evenly

When it comes to 5mm thickness, take a cookie cutter or glass in your desired size and cut it.

Place the strawberry stuffings in one part, I had a snowflakes cutter. so i gave that outlet for top cover.

Using fork merge the edges of both part

I used milk for brushing on the top of it. U can use eggwash or water..

For this cut 7 cm x 7 cm, keep it in diamond shape, put stuffing, fold the bottom edge followed by left and right triangle and press it little for holding together.

Cut little two edges bring the outer edges and fork it.

Second one i added a rectangular bottom , stuffed it and added top layer. forked the edges fully and opened in the center by forking twice

Third design its like wrapping a gift, except the gift portion shown here

Why it has to opened ? Answer is so that it doesn't get exploded.. Grrghh Of course it's not gonna explode, It will heat and it will not leak through closed edges if there is pre default opening, they act as air vents

Take your baking plate, Put a parchment paper(not mandatory) , butter the surface (mandatory)

Start placing your tarts with spaces for each other. Brush them all with milk, you can add sugar crystals on top. It gives a nice brown effect

I used Halogen oven to bake it. If you are using microwave oven preheat the oven to 400 F

My settings were 375 F and 15 mins. Once it done leave extra 5 mins inside.

Remove the plate from oven and let in cool down

You'll be probably wondering about the brown colour dough, i have explained in the latter.

In this batch i given a heart, small round opening as new design

Same settings as before, 375 F and 15 mins. Once it done leave extra 5 mins inside.

Remove the plate from oven and let in cool down

After cooling down put them in a plate and start hunting them down

Sift the all purpose flour and add unsweetened cocoa powder for sifting.

Add sugar and salt, take the cold butter starting cutting into cubes and add them in the mixture

Earlier itself it has been figured out what method is going to work in absence of food processor. Repeat the same. When you have small butter chunks add in the cold water. spoon by spoon.

Check it using palm folding, if its holds together its ready

Knuckle them and flatten little bit.

Wrap it up and refrigerate

Its not very easy to cut pineapple, outer layer is quite tough barrier to get through.

I used oven mitts to hold. i know its not hot , but indeed it helped me to get through cutting without any pokes.

After skin removal, slice them and cut into small piece about 1 cm

Add pineapple in a bowl followed by brown sugar

Using spatula keep mixing until all ingredients get mixed, especially the butter

Since its mini pie, i took a ceramic bowl placed it and checked the size required to roll out the dough, it has to be more than the dia of bowl, as dough will be covering the inner circumference of the bowl.

Dust the silicon mat with flour and slowly smush the dough disc with roller

If worried about white appearence of flour on dough, it will disappear after baking

Mine didn't turn out as a perfect circle, but its okay.. its bigger than the required size.

Roll it onto the roller to avoid breakage of dough

Keep the bowl and release the dough above it. Apply butter onto to the bowl surface before the dough

Don't push it inside directly, lift the dough from outside the bowl and slowly push it inside.

Once its done and its sitting in the shape of the bowl without air beneath dough. You have finally achieved this art of pie dough placement :P

Cut of the excess using knife or pizza cutter, but leave little bit above of the edges about 1cm high

Add the pineapple filling to top surface

Roll out another 3mm thick layer. Make the opening as per your liking. I used pipe decorator bottom to cut circle opening dia 1.5 cm and small circle 0.75 cm using the piping end.

Roll it onto the roller

Carefully place it on the top of the lid and start merging it with base dough and seal it using fork.

By this way once it cool enough, mini pie would come out of the ceramic bowl without any trouble and also in one piece

Put fork on all the side for sealing it, Second one i gave a rectangular opening.

All explained why opening is mandatory for pie. That is they act as air vents

There was leftover dough but not much enough to cover a bowl. So i made two rectangular cut out and stuffed with pineapple filling and forked the edges with four opening in the middle

Brush all of them with milk on top surface

Since its mini pie it requires more time compared to tarts.

Temperature 375 F , 35 mins ; For microwave oven, preheat the oven and keep it for 40 mins

Once baking is done, let it cool down to room temperature.

When bowl has cools down, slowly place your knife on the pie, it will come out easy peasy. Thanks to buttered bowl surface.

Tip: Its good to bake pie or mini pie in ceramic and glass ware compared to metal ones

Enjoy your summer mini pie and Cute little tarts.

As you can see after baking the pie crust is flaky, crisp on the edges; Soft and juicy inside..

It was super delicious. I would love to hear your comments and thoughts. Keep me posted

Adios !!