Engadin Walnut Tartlets / Engadiner Walnußtörtchen

Wonderful tartlets, as if straight from the confectioner! One caveat: my first batch ended up looking pretty burned, although I later discovered that they didn't taste burned at all. For the second batch I therefore reduced the baking time by 10 minutes and slightly lowered the baking temperature. They ended up looking marvellous, but tasting as if they weren't 100% cooked – nevertheless delicious, but I did prefer the burnt looking first batch.

While they are perfect as they are, it should also be possible to make smaller circles and heap a little pile of caramelised walnuts on them, and then bake them on a tray – saves you the effort of forming the cups of dough, and makes waist-friendlier bites...

Edited 27 January 2013: We made these as cookies this time, making 4,5 cm circles with the help of a champagne glass. As it happens, this is exactly what you need for half a walnut, or even two halves stacked on each other. They looked beautiful and definitely were a lot, let's say, consumer-friendly. The only disadvantage I saw was that the caramel escaped during baking and most of it ended up on the baking tray instead of on the cookies. Still, they were sweet enough and very popular.

Served these with Goat's Cheese Canapées with Pears, Parmesan Cookies, Marinated Feta with Olives, Mini Tiramisu and Meringue Towers with Rose Cream