Fruit Tart Flag

I'm always striving to make something "different" when having friends over for a social gathering. I've been getting recipe e-mails from Food Network for what seems to be for forever and once I saw this one for the Flag Fruit Tart Well I knew that I was going to make it for our son's graduation party.

I changed a few things from the recipe on Food Network- for one, there's no place (to my knowledge) to buy those mini tart shells so I had to make my own. I bought 2 boxes of those Pillsbury pre-made pie crust (you'll need 3 packages), rolled the crusts out and used a 2½ inch circle cookie cutter and cut 48 of those pie dough circles- which worked great in my Wilton mini tart/mini muffin pan. I baked them @ 350º for 10 minutes. Don't forget to use a folk and poke vent holes for the steam. The mini tart shells popped right out too! Let them cool on a wire rack. The shells can also be made a day or two in advance.

I added in a ½ cup of granulated sugar and a teaspoon of Vanilla, I used whipped cream from a can (use what you have on hand in my motto). The reason I added more sugar is that British version of whipped cream in a can is not sweet as it is back in the USA.

Now for putting it together...I put my mascarpone mixture into a gallon size ziplock bad, snipped of an end and used it as a pastry bag. Unless you do a lot of cake decorating, pastry bags aren't something most folks have "on hand". Squeeze into each little tart shell, smooth over with a frosting knife (a butter knife will do well too). Place your berries and berry slices as the picture shows and there it is!