Eggless Butter Tarts

If there were no things such as fat and calories to consider and worry about, then I would have not shared any of these tarts and would have finished all of them in one go. :) I will leave it at that and will not write any more to convince how wonderful these butter tarts taste.  Thanks to Gayathri who chose them from Joy of baking website for this month's Baking Eggless Challenge.
These tarts have a crispy, flaky and delectable pastry shell with a moist nut filling. The original recipe contained eggs in the filling and our challenge was to convert it to an eggless one and still maintain the texture and yumminess of the filling. I replaced the eggs in the recipe with cornstarch and these tarts turned out delicious. Also I substituted regular granular sugar for brown one and whole milk for cream.

Ingredients:
For pie crust pastry:
1& 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into i inch pieces
Scant 1/4 cup ice water (or adjust)
For filling:
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar (I used 1/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup regular sugar.)
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nuts and /or raisins (I used 1/2 cup walnuts + 1/4 cup raisins.)
1/2 cup milk (at room temperature)
(I also added a pinch of yellow food color.)

Preparing pie crust pastry:
* Add flour, salt and sugar to a food processor and pulse to combine. 
* Next add the butter cubes to the processor and pulse for about 10 15 seconds until it resembles fine crumbs.
* Finally add the cold water and run the food processor for few seconds again. Remove the dough from the food processor, knead to gather and shape into a disc. 
* Cover it with a plastic wrap or put it in a Ziploc bag and refrigerate it for about an hour.

Preparing filling:
* Cream butter and sugar in a bowl using an electric mixer or a hand mixer. Add milk, vanilla, corn starch and beat again until combined. Remove and add walnuts / raisins to the mixture.

* Assembling and baking:
* Remove the dough from the refrigerator and leave it for 5 minutes at room temperature.
* Roll out the dough and cut into 12 four inch discs using a cookie cutter or a bottle lid. If it is hard to roll the entire dough at once, work with 1/4th portion each time.
* Place the discs into a 12 cup muffin tin.
* Pour the walnut filling into each cup, filling up to 3/4th in each muffin cup.

* Bake until the shells turn golden brown and the filling is set, about 20 - 25 minutes at 375 deg F. Remove and let cool before serving.
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