Neo Neenish Tarts

Neenish tarts. If there was ever another sweet treat from my childhood that I so consistently coveted, I have forgotten it!

They’re an old school legend in New Zealand, and a quick glance of the Edmonds Cookbook gives you a quick hint of why Mum would never EVER make them (or let me make them). The vaguely lemony filling in these black and white frosted morsels is made with a diabetes inducing mixture of butter, icing sugar and sweetened condensed milk, and though I ate very few of these as a child I remember them as tooth achingly sickly sweet. I can only assume the fascination for them lies in the icing (also a OTT sweet icing sugar and milk concoction (with lemon juice for the white icing and gritty cocoa for the dark).

So when my cousin asked me to make them while I was visiting, I couldn’t quite bring myself to make the real ones. We started talking about ways to lightening them up, and I hit on the idea of a lemon curd / cream cheese mix: it delivers the smoothness of the old filling, with a fraction of the sweetness. The tart cases have cream cheese in the pastry too, making them pale with a slightly dense texture. I replaced the sugary frosting with dark and white chocolate ganache.

They’re a grown-up winner. They get better as they age, too.

Makes 12. You will need a 12 hole patty pan (holes are about 4mm diameter) for this recipe – these are slightly smaller than regular muffin pans.

Cream Cheese Pastry

ingredients

55g butter
55g cream cheese
1 cup flour
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp water

mixing

Rub the butter and cream cheese into the flour and icing sugar either using your fingers or a food processor until crumbs from. Add the water and blend until the dough just comes together. Gather into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 2 mm. Cut 12 10mm rounds and press these into the patty pans (you’ll probably need to cut the last two from the scraps: gather the, up and roll out again). Prick the pastry well with a fork. Chill again for 30 minutes. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes or until just golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Lemon Curd Cream Cheese Filling

If you were craving the traditional sweetened condensed milk taste, you could add a tablespoon or so the mixture below.

ingredients

100g caster sugar
75g butter
juice and rind of one lemon
1 egg, very well beaten

100 g cream cheese, softened

mixing

Combine the sugar and butter together in a heavy based saucepan, heat over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until the sugar starts to melt (the mixture will take on a thick gooey texture). Remove from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and grated rind. Let cool to room temperature – this is important, if you put the egg into a mixture that is too hot it will cook immediately and make horrible lumps! Whisk in the egg until completely combined. Return the saucepan to a low heat, and cook, stirring all the time with a wire whisk, until the mixture thickens like a custard – about 3-5 minutes. Do not let the mixture boil. Cool and store in a jar in the refrigerator until needed.

The right consistency for the lemon curd

Whip the cream cheese until smooth. Measure 150g of the lemon curd and add it to the cream cheese, blending well.

Spoon the mixture into the cold tart cases and smooth the top. Refrigerate until set.

Filled tarts

Dark and White Chocolate Ganache

ingredients

30g dark chocolate, chopped
35g white chocolate, chopped
50 mL cream (35% milk fat)

mixing

Place each of the chopped chocolates into small bowls. Heat the cream until almost boiling. Pour exactly half the cream over each quantity of chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is partially melted then heat both bowls in the microwave for about 10 seconds or so and continue to stir until the mixtures are completely smooth.

Remove the tarts from the refrigerator and carefully spread half of each tart with white chocolate ganache. I find this is easy to do with a dinner knife, just using a careful dabbing motion.

Repeat with the dark chocolate ganache on the other half of the tart. If you like, you can spoon some of the dark ganache into a small piping bag and pipe carefully around the outer edge of the dark side of the tart. This gives a neater finish. Of course, if you fancy your piping skills over your spreading ones, you can also get that exact straight line down the middle by piping a semicircular outline with the dark ganache and then filling it in.

Refrigerate the tarts until the ganache is set.

Enjoy!xxx

Neo Neenish Tarts