Easy Fruit Tarts

This is another dessert that I put out during my Thanksgiving dinner. I always love fruit tarts/fruit flans but I did not want to sweat too much to prepare it yet still want to make a presentable yummy dessert. Making a quick and easy dessert was crucial especially since I have a lot of other dishes to prepare. Well, I couldn’t make up my mind to just make one dessert. So, I ended up making 4 kinds because I wanted to make sure every picky eater (if any) have some kind of dish/desert that they will be able to enjoy.
I always feel uncomfortable making pie crusts from scratch and will defer to the help of store bought crusts whenever possible. With the help of Pillsbury, Jello and Dole, and some what minimal preparation time, I came up with a plate of semi healthy (look at the colorful fresh fruits), individual dessert tarts.
Here are some instructions to make this dessert. I used mini tartlet tins to bake the crust. This way, there’s no fear of ruining a dessert when you cut into it. Every portion is somewhat the same (bite) size. Oh yeah, baking spray was also very helpful to enable an easy removal of the baked crust from the tin.

EASY FRUIT TART RECIPE
Ingredients:

• 1 Package Pillsbury Pie Crust, at room temperature
• 1 Package Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding
• Milk (for the Vanilla Pudding)
• 1 Small Canned Mandarin Orange
• Fresh Strawberries
• Kiwi
• Baking Spray

Method:
Preheat oven to 400F. Spray tartlet tins with baking spray. Unroll pie crust on a flat surface and using a round cookie cutter (size of cookie cutter needs to be larger than the top rim of the tartlet, sorry I do not have the exact measurements!) stamp out the pie crusts. Press each “cut” crusts into the each tartlet tins. Gently prick the base of the pie crusts so that the crust does not bubble up when you bake it. Bake the tartlets at 400F for about 10-15 minutes, or until the crusts are golden brown.
In the mean time, prepare the Vanilla Pudding per the instruction on the back on the box, set aside and let it chill. Drain your mandarin oranges and cut the strawberries into quarters. Slice the kiwi into 1/2” thick slices and cut them into quarters.
Once the pie crusts are baked, let them cool before you start to assemble the tartlets. Fill the chilled crusts with till about 3/4" full. Arrange the fruit slices as you please and serve immediately! Enjoy!!
June’s Comments: It depends how big your tartlet tins are, I think I came up with maybe 14-16 tartlets with one package of pie crust. And I think I may have used up 1-1/2 package of pie crust for my purpose. The extra fruits that you may end up with; combine them together and make them into a fruit salad. Extra vanilla pudding?..Just eat it as is, or with the fruit salad! =)
There are no restrictions to the type of fruits to use. The reason why I chose those three was for color. Feel free to use raspberries, blueberries, mangoes, peaches, etc. Let your creativity run wild and have fun!

Simply June