Honey Walnut Tartlets and Radio CPR Sale

I was starting to sound like the biggest, all-time sad bastard a couple of weeks ago. I had contemplated moving back to California, threatened graduate school, and tried to slam the door on DC as I holed up in my house with various failed sewing and photography projects and a couple of completely unhealthy itunes playlists. Well lo’ and behold! All I had to do was look up and suddenly there were (as I had cautiously suspected) quite a few great people doing great things in this city.

I was lucky enough to be included as part of the second annual Radio CPR used books and records sale two weekends ago, along with local artists and craftsters the Bookish Lady, Kristina Bilonik, Kikapika Design, and practically wall-to-wall records and books. My menu was short and sweet: vanilla-caramel-dipped apples, chocolate rads, ginger lemonade, and these honey walnut tartlets that are even easier to make than they are to eat. Radio CPR met some pretty good success with the sale, and I met a couple of folks who sowed some excellent seeds of optimism in my formerly sad-bastard head.

The Tanglewood table! I could include a picture of me actually selling things, but I had gratuitous cleavage in all photos, so we shall leave the abundance of sweet things to stand in for my abundance of chest.

Honey Walnut Tartlets
Adapted from SmittenKitchen via Bon Appétit

If you don't want to make six tartlets, the following proportions will also work just perfectly for one normal 9-inch tart.

1 recipe tart shell, unbaked (I actually don't love this recipe, but it's very, very easy.)
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup golden brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup honey (try to pick a mild one—apple or orange blossom are perfect.)
2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon whole aniseed (I skip this and use 1/2 tsp. vanilla instead.)
1 3/4 cups walnuts, toasted, chopped (but not too finely!)
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 370 degrees F. Cut pastry dough into six pieces, and roll out each one to a 6-inch circle. Transfer to a lightly-buttered 4 1/2-inch-diameter tartlet pan with removable bottom. Press crust onto bottom and up sides of pan; trim overhang to 1/2 inch. Fold overhang in and press, forming double-thick sides. Repeat with remaining dough disks and 5 more pans and prick them all over with a fork.

2. Freeze crusts for 30 minutes. Lightly butter six pieces of foil and press them tightly against frozen tart shells. Bake crusts for 10 minutes before taking them out, carefully removing the foil, pressing down any pastry that has bubbled up gently with the back of a spoon and baking them for an additional 7 minutes, or until lightly golden at the edges. Take them out of the oven and let them cool. Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees F.

3. Meanwhile, make the filling. Stir cream and next 5 ingredients in heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves; try not to let liquid splash the sides of the pot. Increase heat; boil until mixture bubbles thickly and color darkens slightly, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in walnuts then salt.

4. Place crusts on baking sheet lined with foil. Divide filling among crusts. Bake tartlets until filling bubbles thickly and crusts are golden, about 25 minutes total. (I actually had a problem with my walnuts and crusts getting close to burning last time I baked this, so I saved my foil pieces this time around, and covered the tops of the tartlets with about 10 minutes left to bake.) Cool tartlets, and remove pan sides while tartlets are still warm.