Laugh to Death Kitty Party - Strawberry, Kiwi Creamy Mini Tarts

Summer is on full swing in Finland, feels like being in India, air is sharp enough that it gets through our skin and a layer of sun-block, doesn't help. During July technically we see countable number of people working in departments. We girls, myself, Shanthi, Asima and Ritika (new Punjabi Kudi, joined the group of PhD, welcome darling! Official) have our coffee breaks during week days at 14:00 and will let it continue for short chit chat, gossip and laughter. To give it more life, Shanthi organised  a kitty party last before Saturday. Technically it was supposed to start at 18:00. Myself and Asima started of well dressed perfect for kitty party and half way done, Asima's bicycle gear 'broke', yea strange. So we had to take bus and wait in bus stop for 30 minutes and enjoyed sight seeing of passengers, wearing summer dress, trust me it was fun!

 
Finally reached late yay! Best way to start party. Shanthi invited us with great aroma of food. I immediately barged into kitchen to check what was cooking. The menu was kema paratha (minced meat roti) chicken gravy, pulav and coconut kheer, special dish potato curry (from Ritika) and peas roti for veggies. We loaded the refrigerator with ciders,  it should have been wine, but we were lazy to pick from alco. 

Party kick started, then we had an adorable guest, Nisha's one month old baby, Nisha and her mom. He was center of attraction (little krishnan). As always we started with life, visa, next destination, PhD, work, money all normal stuff. With cider slowly flowing in air was getting light. Food time, my favorite. Shanthi is one person on earth who will never circumscribe to number of people and time but feeds wholeheartedly. I call her annadata (food giver). We enjoyed the delicious food and kheer was too good ( I graciously enjoyed two round), soon want to post in my blog as it my new favorite. Then it was time for baby darling to go home, we escorted him to bus station, wearing slippers (house-shoe) and that's when we started to giggle. As you can imagine, wearing a party dress and slippers LOL. Giggle that started ended at 4:20 AM. Oh yes. We gossiped, made fun of each other, spoke endlessly. It was wide range of topic, few went quite deep, but it was the time we laughed our hearts out, forgot the world, everyone, our PhD's, in simple rest of world other than us was shutdown. 

It was the time to eat my tarts, I made a mistake while packing. I closed in air tight box and not remembering that tarts was still hot, so when I opened the box, found them soggy and not crisp anymore.  We had to give few minutes of high heat treatment. Ladies were polite enough to try it and to be honest it was not good anymore, but they ate it...awee true friends.

We continued again, now it was the time to hit everyone's strange behavior, like mine.  I  get up in the middle of night all of a sudden and will start to search for recipes, yes mid-night cravings and I love bollywood gossips. My leg was pulled endlessly like wise everyone had respective turns :)) Then we decided to sleep, each of took respective positions, hardly there was 30 seconds silence, someone or other started to laugh remembering previous jokes and it went on again, there was couple of good nights but final call came from Asima at 4:20 AM then we decided to doze off.

Even the next day while we were going to respective homes, we carried a big smile on face, clear mind and happy soul. This proves how blessed we were to have great friends for life. Thank you ladies for the wonderful evening lucky to have you all  and more elated to express it my blog, something I would love to read again after years :) 

                                                                                                         

I made the mistake of arranging fruits on the tarts,  while the tart was super hot and closed it immediately in a box served it after 4 hours :(   but when I tasted one soon after the photo-shoot while the tart was still crisp and creamy inside with fresh fruit on top was indeed a great summer treat! No of mini tarts obtained from given measurement below were 10

Ingredients

4 table spoon of diced pieces of strawberry and kiwi each to mix in creamy custard (optional) 
Sliced strawberry and kiwi to layer on top of  tarts

For tarts
150 gram flour
50 gram caster sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
50 gram butter
few table spoons of water to make the dough

Method
Mix all the dry ingredients, add butter gently mix well with flour, mild crumbles will be formed. Now add cold water and make the dough ( 3 to 4 table spoon should be enough, don't make it too soft)

Role the dough to desired thickness ( I wanted crispy,  made bit thin layers, make sure not to make it too thin as they might crack) and place into tart mold ( i used two layered cupcakes paper tins). Refrigerate it for 15 - 30 minutes , this helps tarts not to shrink  Bake the tarts for 20 minutes in preheated oven at 180 C

Custard
280 ml of milk
25 ml of single cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg yolk
30 gram cater sugar
2 level tsp corn flour (use more if u want the custard thick)

Method
Bring the milk, cream to boil slowly over a low heat. Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl until well blended. Pour the hot milk on to the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time. Return to the pan, add vanilla extract and over a low heat gently stir with a wooden spatula until thickened.Take off from heat and set aside.

Assemble 
After the tarts are baked (mild brown) let then cool for a while. Mix diced strawberry and kiwi in custard ( optional). Pour in one to two table spoon of  custard. Bake in preheated oven (180 C) for 10 - 15 minutes.
Let the tart and custard to cool for a while, arrange the strawberry and kiwi and serve immediately.