I was inspired to make this recipe by the Pablo Cheese Tarts, which I was fortunate enough to have on my second last day in Japan. Those cheese tarts featured a buttery crust, and an oozy, gooey cheese filling, very reminiscent of both a basque cheesecake and a molten lava cake. I only bought six of them, and wished that I got more, especially since the line to get them in Osaka was definitely not a short or fast one. However, since I was still able to taste them, and since I have decent enough pastry stills, I figured that these cheese tarts might not be a bad project to make. The technical aspects of those tarts, they’re relatively doable in my opinion. Shortbread crusts, with enough patience and resting the dough, is not too terribly challenging. The filling, being primarily cream cheese, egg, and a little bit of parmesan, was also relatively doable. And those are literally the only two components for the classic Pablo Cheese Tart. There were other iterations, such as the chocolate, cherry blossom, and matcha, that had a topping piped over the cheese filling, but in this case, I wanted to focus on just the shortbread tart shells, and that amazing, oozy molten lava cheesecake filling.

For the tart shells, I had leftover carrot shortbread dough, and decided, why not repurpose it for this? Carrot cake and cream cheese frosting go hand in hand, so a carrot flavored pastry stuffed with cheese raises no red flags on my end. The filling, I was originally going with gjetost(pronounced like “yay-toast”) cheese instead of parmesan. Gjetost is this slowly caramelized cheese that tastes like a less sweet dulce de leche. While I love the idea of using it in this particular recipe, I had another gjetost recipe planned that was somewhat similar to this one, and I did not want to overdo it on the gjetost. Moderation is key, people. So instead, I thought about carrots and immediately remembered I had those white rabbit candies from when I made the dango from them. Those candies have a creamy, milk flavor and a pleasant amount of sugar, so I figured, why not throw those into my filling in lieu of sugar? That will guarantee a much creamier texture in the filling anyways, since the candies contain milk powder, so it’s a major win to use them. In terms of technical difficulty, the only step where this recipe can fall apart is the broiling. I broiled my tartlets for a total of 3 minutes, but that was with me checking on them every 1 minute, just to make sure that the tops were caramelized. I recommend doing the same, until you get some nice golden brown speckles running through the tops of your tartlets.

Makes 12 tartlets:
For the shortbread dough:
1/4 cup carrot juice
a pinch of cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch

In a pot, reduce the carrot juice with cinnamon on low heat until it forms a thick syrup. In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until they reach a silky consistency. Then add to that the egg yolk, vanilla, and carrot juice reduction, and stir until those are incorporated as well. Finally, fold the flour and cornstarch into the butter to form your dough. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Then on a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out 12 4-inch rounds of dough, rerolling the dough as necessary. Place the dough onto the backs of an upside down mini cupcake tin. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes. Allow the baked shells to cool slightly before inverting the tin and storing them in an airtight container.

For the cream cheese-white rabbit candy filling:
3.5oz white rabbit candy, wrappers reserved
.5oz parmesan cheese
3oz water
2 eggs
8oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a pot, melt down the white rabbit candy and parmesan into the water. Bring the mixture to a simmer, and pour over your eggs and cream cheese. Whip until combined, and mix into that the vanilla extract. Transfer to a piping bag, and pipe the filling into each tartlet, filling them up all the way.

Place each tart onto an unlined sheet tray and broil for 3 minutes in the oven, checking every minute or so to make sure that the tartlets don’t burn. While they are still warm, garnish the tops of each tartlet with the lucky rabbit wrapper.