Cheese puff tarts are an entertainers delight. Buttery, flaky puff pastry, filled with a delicious little hot cheese and caraway filling. Super quick to make and they can be frozen ready to bake whenever you want. Perfect finger food!
We love entertaining and cheese puff tarts are definitely one of our standby finger foods. A dear friend shared this recipe with us years ago, and a friend had given it to her. We like to share!
Super quick and easy to prepare
all ingredients ready to process
Cheese puff tarts are super easy to prepare. Simply grate your cheese and add everything else to the processor. Blitz and you are ready to pop into the puff pastry and bake. Too easy!
Pastry
Look for butter puff pastry, as opposed to pastry made with margarine, as butter always delivers a better flavour. The sheets we use are frozen, square, and ready rolled. Frozen ready rolled pastry thaws in minutes, so all you need to do is use a cookie cutter to cut out the pastry discs. We like!
You can see why they’re called ‘cheese puff tarts’
Don’t be tempted to overfill the pastry cases as these little tarts really do puff up a lot.
Freeze like a dream
Cheese puff tarts freeze like a dream. Place uncooked tarts in the tray into the freezer. Freeze, then remove the tarts from the tray and place in zip lock bags. When you’re ready to cook simply place them into greased trays again and bake straight from the freezer, but give them an additional 5 minutes from frozen to cook. Easy peasy.
The mixture can be frozen as is, ready to take from the freezer, thaw and fill your pastry cases.
Freeze tarts at this point then remove from tray and bag them. Replace into tray when ready to bake
Cheese
Cheddar cheese can be mild, tasty or sharp in taste. Look for an aged sharp cheddar to give you the best flavour.
You can substitute the cheddar for other cheeses. Swiss, Gouda, Edam, Colby or Emmental would make good alternatives to using cheddar cheese.
Try adding some blue cheese with the cheddar such as Danish blue, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Maytag or Stilton would all add incredible flavour to these little cheese puff tarts.
Caraway seeds
Using caraway seeds in the puffs is completely optional but they do add a distinctive, but mild anise flavour to the cheese.
Use a dry frypan over medium heat and add the caraway seeds to the pan. Shake the pan for 2-3 minutes until you can smell the fragrant, toasted aroma.
Add other flavours
We often add some finely chopped, and sautéed bacon and onion to the mixture to add additional flavour to the cheese puff tarts. Or try adding some finely chopped semi dried tomatoes. Chives add a lovely complimentary flavour to the cheese, as would finely sliced shallots (scallions).
Buttery and flaky pastry filled with a delicious little hot cheese and caraway filling. Super quick to make. They can be frozen ready to bake whenever you want these tasty hot little morsels. Enjoy!
Ingredients
4 sheets frozen puff pastry - see notes
see notes
(500g) (1lb 2oz) cheddar cheese grated
(100 g)(4oz) parmesan cheese grated
4 large eggs
8 tablespoons full cream milk
2 teaspoons toasted caraway seeds - optional
spray oil
Instructions
you will need mini muffin tins
preheat oven to 430 f (220 c) on bake, not fan
take pastry from freezer and place on bench
place all ingredients in a food processor and blitz till incorporated (or mix together in a bowl)
cut pastry using a 2 1/2 inch (6 cm) cookie cutter
lightly spray oil over muffin tin and then gently dab with a piece of kitchen towel - see notes
line muffin tins with pastry
place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each hole - we used a 3.5cm (1 1/4 inch) scoop
you can freeze cheese puff tarts at this stage- see notes
bake for around 15 minutes till golden brown- set a timer-see notes
serve and enjoy!
Notes
after spraying mini muffin tin gently dab oil with a piece of kitchen towel to leave a very thin coating of oil
if freezing place filled uncooked cheese puff tarts in the freezer in the trays and freeze then remove from tin and pop in a ziplock bag in the freezer
all ovens are different, just check your cheese puffs around the 15 minute mark
bake from frozen for 430 f ( 220 c ) for 20 minutes
Hi Deborah, the cheese puffs are at their best served freshly baked and hot from the oven as they will partially deflate as they cool. The good news is that if experience is anything to go by these tasty little bites won’t last long. Hope this helps, Jo and Jen
Thanks for that. I presume I can prepare and just leave in the fridge and then pop in the oven just prior to serving.
PS what a wonderful website you have. I am a bit of a sour dough bread person but hate hard work like kneading. Have sorted out great recipes that do not require that, just time with a wonderful active starter. Cheers
Hi Deborah, you can absolutely hold the tarts in the fridge until ready to bake. Alternatively if fridge space is a problem we frequently bake from frozen, just be sure to return the tarts to a greased muffin tin before baking. Enjoy
Hi, I made the “Puffs” I added more egg as my eggs were “small”. The filling was a little runnier than shown in your picture. However it worked just fine, puffed up, only issue was that a lot of “oil” might have been from my type of tasty cheese came out – next time I will put them in a tray so it doesn’t get on the floor of the oven, a bit smokey, but did clean up okay. They tasted wonderful, I held them in the fridge till I cooked (not frozen) deflated a little but not much and as my “bring a plate” they did not last a moment – would recommend Thank you.
Hi Deborah, we’ve had a similar issue with a particularly oily cheese in the past but popping a tray underneath to save the oven is definitely a good move. Hope the hostess was cool with the mess in her oven? Apart from smoking the house up, we’re thrilled to hear the cheese puff tarts were a success and your reputation as a great cook is still intact. Thanks for the follow up, Jo and Jen
Yield: 4 dozen
6 comments
Do you have to serve Cheese puffs immediately, do they deflate?
Hi Deborah, the cheese puffs are at their best served freshly baked and hot from the oven as they will partially deflate as they cool. The good news is that if experience is anything to go by these tasty little bites won’t last long. Hope this helps, Jo and Jen
Thanks for that. I presume I can prepare and just leave in the fridge and then pop in the oven just prior to serving.
PS what a wonderful website you have. I am a bit of a sour dough bread person but hate hard work like kneading. Have sorted out great recipes that do not require that, just time with a wonderful active starter.
Cheers
Hi Deborah, you can absolutely hold the tarts in the fridge until ready to bake. Alternatively if fridge space is a problem we frequently bake from frozen, just be sure to return the tarts to a greased muffin tin before baking. Enjoy
Hi, I made the “Puffs” I added more egg as my eggs were “small”. The filling was a little runnier than shown in your picture. However it worked just fine, puffed up, only issue was that a lot of “oil” might have been from my type of tasty cheese came out – next time I will put them in a tray so it doesn’t get on the floor of the oven, a bit smokey, but did clean up okay. They tasted wonderful, I held them in the fridge till I cooked (not frozen) deflated a little but not much and as my “bring a plate” they did not last a moment – would recommend
Thank you.
Hi Deborah, we’ve had a similar issue with a particularly oily cheese in the past but popping a tray underneath to save the oven is definitely a good move. Hope the hostess was cool with the mess in her oven? Apart from smoking the house up, we’re thrilled to hear the cheese puff tarts were a success and your reputation as a great cook is still intact. Thanks for the follow up, Jo and Jen