If you were to ask me what I have been up to in terms of my cooking, I would probably present you with these lucuma tarts. They perfectly represent how much I have been doing research on Latin American-cuisine, as well as tie into my background at Milkbar. The shells are made with lucuma, being an Amazonian fruit that tastes like caramel, to give them a nice, buttery, caramel-like flavor. The filling is made with the same lucuma, but also homemade dulce de leche, and eggs, to give it an almost Crack pie/Milkbar pie-like texture. I topped the dessert with cookies made with the same crust, and some white chocolate drizzle, just to make it all look like a pie that dropped in from the stars! I do mention making the dulce de leche from scratch in this recipe, but it was really just boiling a can of condensed milk for like 8 hours, in a covered pot, completely submerged in water, on low heat, then allow that to cool for an hour before using. Figured I would put that here than in the actual recipe, but you can actually just use premed dulce de leche as well. It just so happened that I had made some during quarantine and I just needed to use it!

Makes 4 small tarts:
For the tart shell:
1 cup all-purpose flour with more for dusting
2 tablespoons turbinado sugar
3 tablespoons lucuma powder
1 stick unsalted butter with more for lining
a pinch of salt
3 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix all of the ingredients, except the water and vanilla, together to form a crumbly dough. Pour in the water and vanilla and knead into a smoother dough. Refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Roll the dough out on a floured surface, to about 1/8th inch thickness. Cut out 4 4-inch circles using a 4-inch crumpet mold. Brush some butter inside of each crumpet mold as well. Place the molds onto a lined sheet tray. Place the circles inside of each mold. Cut out and transfer 2-inch wide strips of dough into the molds, just to cover the sides fo the mold, and then trim off the excess. Prick the bottoms of the dough. Cover the tops with parchment and weigh the parchment with baking weights or dried beans or dried rice. Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, removing the weights with 5 minutes left to bake to help dry out the bottoms. Cool down the tart shells. With the leftover dough, roll back out to 1/8 inch thickness and cut out star shapes. Bake the stars for 8-12 minutes, depending on their size.

For the filling:
3 eggs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup lucuma powder
1/3 cup dulce de leche
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk everything together to form your filling. Pour into the tart shells, dividing it equally between each one. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Allow the tarts to cool slightly before removing the crumpet molds and transferring the baked tarts into the freezer to cool down for at least 20 minutes.

For the white chocolate drizzle:
1/4 cup white chocolate
a pinch of salt

Literally just melt the chocolate and salt in a microwave safe bowl for 45 seconds. Stir the chocolate together to make sure it is fully melted. Transfer into either a piping bag or a cornet and snip the tip. Drizzle the chocolate over one side of the tart. Garnish with the cooled down cookies to finish.