What crust for custard tartlets?

I vote for the shortbread or the pate sucre. You might consider enhancing the pastry with some subtle flavor like nutmeg, lemon zest, or finely ground nuts. Another choice would be layers of buttered phillo. I think the crisp texture of the phillo would be a good contrast to the creamy custard. The puff pastry would be the wrong texture and too bland, in my opinion. The pate brisee would also be sort of bland and too conventional

I agree - the short bread or pate sucre are great options! Have you also considered playing with Vanilla Wafers - like the kinds we used to have growing up? You can crush them, add cinnamon and butter to make a "cookie" crust.

My only reserve wtih the puff pastry would be if it could "hold" the custard - then again I don't have much experience in the puff world.

My argument against puff pastry would be that it tastes like unseasoned flour. It is also not particularly easy to form into a dish shape.

I have had tartlets made with both sweet and not-so-sweet butter based pastry crust that turned out reasonably well. I'd err on the side of sweet unless the filling is excessively sweet.

A cookie crust could work but when working in small sizes it might need to be somewhat thick to hold up the filling, and that might result in uneven texture, with a hard cookie and soft filling. there's a happy medium in there somewhere but my skill with that kind of crust isn't quite perfected.

do you think would work best?

Thanks. Very well-reasoned. I think you're right - the unsweetened doughs will end up tasting very bland. Thus it comes down to texture. As you know, a shortbread dough ends up quite firm and crisp - and this elicited favourable comments from people in the past who liked the counterpoint of crisp crust and creamy filling, while the sweet dough would be more tender - perhaps not so texturally satisfying but less of a challenge with a fork. Some people, I've seen, aren't happy when things are a bit difficult to manage on the plate. Any thoughts on which one would be more preferable?

On phyllo - it sounds like a great idea but this is something I have no experience with. When baking for a group I like to stick with things I know and have done. If I'm doing it for myself, *then* I can experiment.

Another poster suggested a cookie crumb crust - that's another idea, but I'd only want to do it if somebody has a recipe for making the right types of cookies from scratch. I prefer not to use any storebought prepared foods in baking. Does anybody have a recipe I could compare against?

On Tue 19 Apr 2005 06:46:38p, Alex Rast wrote in rec.food.baking:

This might be good...

Lemon Crisps

1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup Unsalted Butter, softened 1 large egg 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour Sugar or powdered sugar

Combine 1 cup sugar and butter in large mixer bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add egg and lemon peel; continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour. Beat until soft dough forms.

Divide dough in half. Shape each half into 8-inch (1 1/2-inch diameter) log on lightly floured surface. Wrap tightly in plastic food wrap. Refrigerate until firm (2 hours or overnight). Heat oven to 350?F. Cut logs into 1/8 to 1/4-inch slices with sharp knife. Place 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until edges are very lightly browned. Let stand 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Roll cookies in sugar while still warm and again when cool.

Makes 6 1/2 dozen cookies.

VARIATION: Sugared Lemon Almond Crisps: Stir 1/3 cup finely chopped almonds into dough after beating in flour.

Vox Humana wrote on 18 Apr 2005 in rec.food.baking

I'm thinking a Graham Waffer crust...possibly with coconut or crushed nuts in the mix.

My concern about the cookie crumb crust is that it might be difficult to rem ove from a form and it might not hold together on the plate.

...

Yes, that was one of my worries, too, with all of the different types of crusts. Of course with a custard filling you can't invert anything, which means they have to be eased out. It'd be nice if they had tart tins with a removable bottom, but I've not seen these in the size I'd like (4" round). I think also with any kind of crumb or cookie crust, in addition to the sticking problem, there's the problem of getting it in there in the first place. It's hard to do that with small tart tins, where it seems to be much easier to roll out whatever dough you're using and press it in.

On these grounds I could also nix the graham cracker recommendation, but I would anyway - the strong flavour and rough texture of the graham crackers I think would overwhelm a custard filling where the primary flavour is vanilla.