Macadamia Nut Tarts

October 22: National Nut Day

We posted a pecan tassie recipe for National Pecan Day on April 14. Below is a similar recipe using macadamias for National Nut Day today. This was Islander’s brother’s home economics cooking project from the eighth grade (late 1980s!) in Hawaii, which we still make quite often on the mainland for an island-inspired dessert. Although other nuts, such as pecans and walnuts, may be used, add some aloha to these tasty tarts and make them with macadamia nuts instead.

Recipe

(From Kahuna B.)

For the crust

• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3-ounce block of cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup flour

Directions

In a mixing bowl, stir the butter with cream cheese until smooth. Add the flour and blend well to make a dough. Roll into big ball. Divide into 24 smaller balls (about an inch round).

Flatten each ball into a small disc and shape to fit the wells of an ungreased mini-muffin pan. Continue making all the crusts.

For the macadamia nut filling

• 2 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2/3 cup macadamia nuts, chopped

Directions

In a small bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Beat in the egg. Stir in the vanilla. Mix in the macadamia nuts.

Fill each crust with the nut mixture. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the pan. Carefully remove each macadamia nut tart from the pan with a small knife.

Notes

• Substitute macadamias for pecans or walnuts in this tart recipe.
• Make more delicious desserts with macadamia nuts, such as vanilla-macadamia nut fudge, caramel popcorn with macadamia nuts, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, triple chocolate macadamia nut kisses cookies and macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. Recipes have been previously posted on our blog.
• Nuts about nuts? Search our blog for more recipes containing macadamias, pecans, walnuts, peanuts or filberts (hazelnuts).