Carrot cheesecake tart with candied carrots (a twist on my favorite carrot cupcakes)
When I was in school, my hands-down favorite dessert we made was carrot cupcakes. And we did (or in my case, tried to do) some pretty fancy things. But these carrot cupcakes were amazing, and always a hit. Once the cupcakes cooled from the oven, they were covered with a thin cream cheese icing, and then the icing was piped in a donut-ring, leaving a 1" hole in the middle. A dollop of caramel was dropped into the donut-hole. The combination of carrot, cinnamon, sugar, cream cheese and caramel was never matched for me in anything else we did. So this week, I wanted to try to reinvent those cupcakes in the form of a tart. The crust is a combination of flour and ground up ginger cookies with some butter. If I weren't so allergic to nuts, I'd add ground up walnuts to the crust - and heartily recommend it. Before filling the tart shells with the carrot creamcheese batter, I put a layer of golden raisins on the bottom of each shell. The carrot cheesecake, once baked and cooled, is topped with a caramel lattice, a small piped creamcheesey rose, and a sliver of candied carrot. I was just barely able to share a small tart with my husband...
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