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Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts are just what you want if you are looking for a perfectly fun and easy recipe to make with your kids for Valentine’s Day (or any time of the year for that matter)!
I’m one of those people who loves everything about Valentine’s Day (you may be saying, “blech” right now, but I do). Well, I’m not particularly fond of how commercial the holiday has become, but I do love all the hugs, kisses, homemade cards and, of course, sweet treats! While you can easily buy your Valentine a bag of sweet tarts with cute sayings printed on them, why not go to the store, buy fresh ingredients and then make something special with your kids instead? This year, Kenya, Chloe and I have decided to make Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts for daddy (I hope he doesn’t read this post before the 14th- eek!) to show him just how much we love him. After all, isn’t food the fastest way to a daddy’s heart?
Putting a spin on Pop Tarts, one of my childhood favorites, I came up with the idea of these homemade Heart Tarts. Filled with fresh raspberries and a pink icing that’s made with the juice from the raspberries instead of food coloring, if Pop Tarts had actually been made this way, my mom would have probably allowed me to eat them more often as a kid.
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These are such a fun recipe activity to make with the kids. Forget the sugar-filled pastries from the store and make your own special Valentine’s treats!
Kenya and I shot a little video of us making this recipe. It is an unbelievably easy and deliciously fun way to share the love. Just wait till you try them — I bet you won’t be saying “blech” anymore!
Raspberry Cream Cheese Heart Tarts
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raspberries
- 1/4 cup whipped cream cheese
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 box refrigerated pie dough (2 sheets), thawed if frozen (you can substitute your favorite pie crust recipe for store-bought. Make enough for 2 crusts)
- water
For Raspberry Icing:
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup frozen raspberries, defrosted
- 1 tablespoon milk or water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Place the raspberries, cream cheese and honey in a bowl. Using the back of a fork, mash the raspberries with the cream cheese, leaving some pieces of raspberry intact.
- Roll the pie crust 1/4 inch thick and using a 4-inch heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out hearts (or, if you are using packaged pie crust just unroll and cut out hearts).
- Place one heart on a lightly floured work surface and place 2 tsp of the cream cheese mixture in the very center, leaving a 1/4″ border around the cut-out.
- Lightly dip your index finger into a cup of water and “brush” the border with the water (this will allow the two sides of the heart to adhere to one another).
- Top with another heart and take the tines of a fork and gently press down along the edges to adhere (making sure the cream cheese mixture stays inside the heart pocket). With a toothpick, poke some holes in the top of the heart to remove any air pockets.**
- Place on a parchment or Silpat lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
- While the hearts are baking, take the defrosted raspberries, place in a strainer and press down with the back of a spoon to release raspberry juice into a bowl — should be about 2 tablespoons of juice depending on how juicy the raspberries are.
- Whisk in the milk into the raspberry juice, then slowly pour in the powdered sugar to make icing.
- When cool, take a spoon and spread the raspberry icing over the hearts.
- Serve.
Notes
- * You can use prepared Pie Crusts too such as Pillsbury or your favorite brand
- ** To Freeze: place hearts on a cookie sheet and freeze for one hour. Remove hearts and place in a ziploc bag, label and freeze up to 3 months. When ready follow steps 7-11, adding an extra 3 minutes to the baking time.
I made these on Tuesday of this week. My son helped me make them for my girlfriend who was keeping him for me while I was at a doctor’s appointment. We had too much fun making them and they turned out A-MAZING! So delish, and my girlfriend’s family gobbled them up! Thanks for the recipe and the adorable idea. I can’t wait to make them again this weekend.
I made these this morning (well, I grated a granny smith apple and tossed some brown sugar and cinnamon over it for the filling) — came out so cute! Thanks for such a cute idea!!!
Does the honey go in with the cream cheese and raspberries for the filling?
I’m sure you could freeze them and cook in a toaster on a low setting for 10ish minutes.
I bet you could use just a teeny bit of sweetener in the cream cheese mixture and skip the frosting. I think then you’d be able to easily freeze them and maybe reheat in the toaster?? I cannot wait to make these!!
You did it again! LOVE your recipes and am so happy to have a tasty and sweet alternative using REAL ingredients! SO much better than the usual suspects!
Jessica
Very cute (and tasty too, I imagine!)!
I’ve been working on a bunch of dessert recipes for the book and several happen to be vegan. So good!
ditto on the non-dairy. any v-day vegan recipes coming in?
Ditto on the frozen strawberries substitution. Will this work?
I just left the cream cheese out for half of my batch (hubby doesn’t like Cream cheese) and they were fine!
I would also use pie filling like Cherry, Apple, or any kind of Pie filling…Thought Cherry though being it’s red like a heart…Great ideal…
You could use the vegan cream cheese. Tofutti makes one.
You might try any fruit filling you’d use for a pie in place of the dairy filling 🙂 This recipe reminds me that I’ve been wanting to make pocket pies for some time now.
Any ideas for substituting the cream cheese with something non-dairy? Thanks!
Sadly yes. If you know me, you know that I cut back on the sugar as much as possible. You could also leave it off altogether and they’re still yummy!