Raspberry Mascarpone Mini Tarts

For Mother’s Day, simple but elegant sweets even a child can make.

Raspberry Mascarpone Mini Tarts

by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

Raspberry Mascarpone Mini Tarts is my recipe of the day.

The Mother’s Day I am celebrating is going  to be rather low-key. Our air-conditioning is out, and it is just going to be me and my husband hanging out in the heat, tricking out some new additions to our patio decor, and grilling up some  bratwurst tacos which will be featured in Weekday Suppers in about another week.

Both our mothers have  passed away now, and our daughter is off working in Columbus doing her daily grind. So there is not much in the way of motherly things going on here. But Bill and I both think of our mothers all the time. Their memories are with us forever.

Tart Ingredients

For me, some of my earliest memories are hanging out with Mom in the kitchen. When she wasn’t cooking (my earliest memory of her cooking  is watching her fry homemade donuts), we would hang out in there. Sometimes while she did the ironing, she would have me count or read my older brother’s reading books from school. Fun time was often making paper dolls from old Sears catalog photos or making Barbie cars from empty shoe boxes while she stitched home made clothes for my dolls. We didn’t have very much back then, and she taught me a lot about thrift, and reusing things, and making things from scratch. Perhaps one of the reasons I enjoy cooking and making foods from scratch today.

Tart Filling

Mom always took great pride in her cooking. Even if back in the 1960’s cooking wasn’t exactly the same as it is today. We have so many more choices now. And many things we can buy can make things much easier.

For my Mother’s Day recipe with the group, I decided to post a recipe I developed last year and was going to enter into a recipe contest when an appropriate theme came around.  It is for raspberry mascarpone mini tarts, which are no-bake, made with only five simple ingredients, can be made in just a few minutes time, and are easy enough for a small child to put together, with little to no supervision or assistance from a parent, or even an older brother or sister.

Filling and Shells

I do think that at least for me, Mother’s Day was less about celebrating  the things my family loved me for and more about teaching my child about how to be able to honor someone they cared about, showing them simple ways to show their appreciation, and develop the sense of pride in their own cooking skills. For if I had made these for my own mother, I am sure she would have exclaimed “Oh! How sweet!” and made me feel wonderful the way she always managed to do. But we didn’t have these easy ingredients back then, and not even when my own child was growing up.

Filling the Tarts

And as a kid, I would have felt such pride and happiness to be able to put together a dessert that looked dainty, fancy and elegant, without it being above my own ability to make. These are so simple–stir the filling, fill the cups and add fruit and powdered sugar. As an idea for Dad to help the kids get a surprisingly  wonderful food treat together for their Mom, this is going to be the bomb.

Preparing the Tarts

So I hope that if your kids get to make this for their mom, they are as pleased about it as their mom will be. These kind of food memories tend to last for so long, and as well, help to build cooking skills which will enrich their health and lives far into the future when mothers past are long a memory and new mothers spring up to take their place.

So have a Happy Mother’s Day and remember to make it a learning and happy moment for the kids. Without kids, there are no mothers!

~Sue

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