Strawberry Skull Tarts

Mark Gilliland of Irvington, NY created these skull tarts with his daughter during a recent baking lesson. The tarts are filled with homemade strawberry jam canned by his wife. Mark included a lot of great images to help you all make your own! However, the baking instructions and dough are something you'll need to figure out.

Enjoying one of the finished skull tarts.

It looks like they cut out skull shaped pieces of pastry dough, put them on a cookie sheet, put jam on the bottom dough skull piece, laid a top dough skull piece on top, and pinched the edges to contain the jam.

Using a fork, they pressed it around the edges to seal it. This helps the two dough pieces stick together better and prevents the jam from oozing out the edges.

With a knife, they cut the skull face details into the top layer of dough.

Then, the tarts need to bake. From my years of baking experience, the oven normally needs to be preheated to 365. As for time to cook, that varies depending on the creation. Baked goods with fillings sometimes take longer than non-filled baked goods, like rolls. This is due to the moisture. I suggest watching these bake, until they are golden brown and crispy.

After they were baked, they put them on a cooling rack. Since they have fillings, the tarts will be very hot! This is probably a good time to either make another batch, or clean up your mess.

After the tarts were cool, they put them on plates.

Finally, consume your skull tarts!

Now that I've figured out how to make these, I have a can of Pillsbury pastry dough and some strawberry jam just waiting to be made into tarts. Also, I love that Mark taught his daughter how to bake these. Reminds me of the cooking lessons my husband give my daughter. I cover baking with her.