Black Cat Halloween Tart

This is a cute treat that you can serve on Halloween. I must admit that I tend to be very careless so I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes beforehand. Hopefully you can make this and have fun!

Here are the supplies you will need

- 10 pre-made tart shells (Can either be sweet or plain but please not salty)

- 1/3 cup of chocolate

- 1 tsp of butter

Pudding

- 2 cups pumpkin (fresh or canned)

- 3 tbsp of sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup half and half cream

- 1 packet of gelatine or 2 tbsp

Nerikiri (or you can use marzipan)

- 1 tbsp white chocolate

- 2 cups of white bean paste

- 8 tbsp of glutinous rice flour

- 6 tsp of water.

The first actual step is taking your tarts and baking them. You will want to put a cupcake liner in the tarts and fill them with something heavy like rocks or beans to prevent the tart from deforming when baking. Then proceed to bake for around 10 min at 350°F degrees.

Ok in this step you will need your tarts that have already been baked. You will then need the 1/3 cup of chocolate and a teaspoon of butter. Place these items in a metal bowl above a boiling pot of water to melt. Please do not overheat otherwise it becomes chunky and impossible to use. After the chocolate melts use a brush to line each of the tarts and set aside in the fridge.

After placing the tarts into the fridge we now need to make the pudding to go in the tarts. I am using fresh pumpkin but if you are using canned then you can skip this part. You will need around 2 cups of pudding so cut your pumpkin into pieces and place into the blender.

Place the pumpkin in a pot on medium heat. Add 1 cup of half and half cream and around 3 tbsp of sugar. You can add more but my pumpkin was already pretty sweet. Stir until small bubbles begin to form and add 1 packet of gelatine as well as 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Remove from the stove and strain. It will help smooth the texture of the pumpkin pudding and place aside to cool.

Nerkiri is like the japanese equivalent of marzipan except more healthy. Since I do not particularly like the taste of marzipan I like using this instead, but if you wish to make marzipan go ahead and skip this step. For this you will need 2 cups of white bean paste 8 tbsp of glutinous rice flour and 6 tsp of water.

Mix all the ingredients in a pot and then put on low heat. Stir constantly until it has a dough like consistency. Take it out of the pot and cool for a few minuets. Then divide into a 3 and add orange food colouring to one while adding black to the other 2 pieces.

Now it is time to go back to the pudding you made earlier and pour it into the tarts. If done right the chocolate should prevent the tarts from getting soggy when the gelatine is setting. Do not forget to place the tarts in the fridge for optimum results.

Now it is time to mold your black cat. Divide your black dough evenly among all your tarts. Now take that dough and split it into the sections as shown in the images above. 2 for the ears, 1 for the head, 1 for the body, 4 for the feet and 1 strip for the tail. Also do not forget to use a toothpick to dip in white chocolate and dab on the face and ears.

Also divide your orange dough among the tarts. Roll the into balls and then use and toothpick to create indents. Take a pinch of the black dough to make the stems. You can also cut some little pumpkin leaves out of mint to add effect.

Now arrange it all together and you are done! Naturally you can just serve it with the cat and pumpkin decorations but I decided to add more stuff. As you can see I went a bit overboard but it was a lot of fun to make. Now have fun and Happy Halloween!