Heart Shaped Fruit Tart with Pecan Crust

With Valentines Day right around the corner, it’s almost mandatory to make something heart shaped lol! I made these delicious little heart shaped fruit tart with a pecan crust. The next time I make them I think I would make more of a pudding-based for the fruits to sit on top of, i added the ingredients in the wrong order this time, but they still came out nice.

Ingredients:

• Tart Shell
  • ½ cup Pecan halves
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ¾ stick of butter or smart balance original buttery spread (what I used)
  • ½ cup white flour
  • ½ cup wheat flour
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • ¼ tsp salt
• Filling/Fruit
  • ½  package instant vanilla pudding
  • ½ cup milk
  • ½  cup thawed cool whip
  • 1 tbs Apricot Preserves plus 1 tbs water

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees. In a food processor add pecans and brown sugar, one chopped up add the other tart shell ingredients and mix until an even mixture (it will be a little crumbly).

Between two sheets of parchment paper roll the tart shell flat and even, then take a heart shape and cut 4 hearts out, and then use the remains to build the wall around the heart. If you don’t have a heart shape cookie cutter, make a stencil out of parchment paper and then individually cut out the hearts. Bake the hearts for 25 minutes, then let cool completely before next step. When I took mine out of the oven I let them cool on a cookie sheet.

In a bowl mix the pudding mix and the milk, then add the cool whip. Make sure you do it in this order, otherwise it will not form a custard/puddying texture (I made the mistake of adding everything to a bowl and then mixing with a hand mixer, and it did not solidify or turn into a pudding texture).

When the shells are cooled off, add the pudding mixture, and then desired fruit (each of my tarts took 1 raspberry and 1 giant strawberry). In a small bowl mix apricot preserves and water, drizzle on top of the tarts and serve.

 All the lovely ingredients

 The crusts that have been formed

 The crusts filled with the pudding mixture

 The completed heart shaped tart