Pumpkin Tassies with Salted Bittersweet Chocolate Drizzle

The past weekend was spent picking out pumpkins for every purpose – sugar pumpkins for roasting, mini pumpkins for the mantel, great pumpkins for carving and one little white pumpkin just because. The next logical step was to make a delicious pumpkiny something, and these pumpkin tassies were just the treat. They’re like mini pumpkin pies, but better!

Better because they’re drizzled with chocolate – and not just any old chocolate, Guittard, a Fair Trade chocolate!

October is Fair Trade month, and the kind folks from the nonprofit organization reached out to me to help spread the word. So, what is Fair Trade?

“Fair Trade goods are just that. Fair. From far-away farms to your shopping cart, products that bear our logo come from farmers and workers who are justly compensated.”

Knowing that will make your chocolate taste even sweeter!

There are all kinds of good things to learn about Fair Trade on their website here, and I really loved the simplicity of the message in their new PSA. Take a moment to see how you can make a difference!

I hope you’ll try the pumpkin tassies, too. I love the crust-to-filling ratio (I’m a crust girl!) and they are exactly two bites apiece, which means you should eat at least four in one sitting.

Pumpkin Tassies with Salted Bittersweet Chocolate Drizzle

[click for printable recipe]

Yield: 24 mini pies

Source: Adapted from Cooks.com

Prep: 20 minutes, total time with chilling and baking 1 hour 45 minutes

You’ll need a 24 cavity mini muffin tin for this recipe.

Crust

1/2 cup/ 113g unsalted butter, softened

3 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup/ 125g all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Pumpkin filling

1/2 cup/ 132g pumpkin puree (canned packed pumpkin puree is fine)

1/4 cup/53g granulated sugar

1/4 cup/ 60g heavy cream

1 large egg

1 teaspoon/ 2g pumpkin pie spice

Topping

2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted

Fleur de sel

1. For the crust, combine the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl. Mix using an electric hand mixer on low speed until just combined, about 5 seconds. Don’t overwork dough or it will greatly shrink during baking. Mix in half the flour and pinch of salt on low speed until crumbly. Mix in remaining flour until well combined. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 350F. 
3. Remove dough from refrigerator and knead one or two times. Shape into a 6×4-inch rectangle. Cut dough into 24 cubes. Press each cube into a mini muffin cup. Use your fingers to press the dough up the sides of the cups making the crust edges as tall as the top of the muffin cup. Refrigerate filled muffin tin while you prepare the filling.
4. In a medium bowl mix together the filling ingredients using the electric hand mixer on medium speed. Filling will be very liquid. Remove muffin tin from refrigerator and divide the filling between the crusts (I used a 1/4 cup measure with a pour spout). Bake for 5 minutes at 350F then reduce temperature to 325F and bake for 10 more minutes. Tassies are done when the filling is set, and it shouldn’t jiggle when you move the pan.
5. Let pies cool completely in the pan. Place a wire cooling rack over a length of wax paper. Transfer tassies to the cooling rack. Place melted chocolate in a zip-top bag with a very tiny hole snipped in the corner. Pipe chocolate onto the tops of the pies in three to four quick passes over each pie. Top with fleur de sel just before serving.