-Martha Stewart Hors d’
2 c Flour
1 pn Salt
3/4 c Cold, unsalted butter
1/3 c Ice water
Combine flour and salt in food processor. Cut butter into small pieces and
add to flour. Process quickly until resembles coarse meal. Add water by
droplets, just mixing until dough holds together when pressed with
fingers—NOT wet or stickey. Remove dough and press into a flat round,
wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes. To form tartlets, you’ll need
twice as many pans as the quantity of shells you want to make. Lightly
butter or pam the insides of half the pans. Roll out half the pastry on
floured board into a round about 1/8″ thick. Continually move pastry around
board, burning over once or twice to prevent sticking. Put tartlet pans on
pastry and, with a sharp knife, cut pastry into pieces slightly larger than
pans. Place pastry in prepared pans, pressing firmly, and cut off the
excess pastry with thumb. Press an unbuttered pan into each pastry-lined
pan to act as a weight during baking. Place shells on baking sheet and
chill 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375. To bake, set another baking sheet
on top of tartlets. Bake for 10 minutes, until edges begin to have color.
Remove top baking sheet and liner pans and continue to bake until shells
are lightly golden—5-7 more minutes. Remove shells from pans and cool on
racks. Shells can be cooled fully then cushioned with wax paper, stacked
and stored in an airtight container up to three days. Also they can be
frozen. Place unthawed shells in a 350 degree oven—don’t allow to brown
further.
Yields
40 Servings