M, the tassie recipe I have always used has both butter & cream cheese in the crust--here is the
recipe I have used my entire life as did my mother before me==>
Dough:
4 small packages cream cheese (total of 12 oz as I don't think you can find the small Philadelphia cream cheese packages anymore)
4 sticks butter
4 cups flour
Mix above and chill dough 2-1/2 hours. Then with ball of dough the size of a large marble (I use a 35-mm scoop to get uniform balls), push dough around to line small muffin pans. Sprinkle pecan bits in bottom of each cup. Pour filling into each mini crust filling only 2/3 full. Add half a pecan piece on top, if desired. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.
Filling:
Pinch of salt
6 eggs, slightly beaten
6 cups light brown sugar
6 Tbsp. melted butter
2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
Blend filling ingredients together thoroughly. The recipe states the yield is 8-1/2 dozen, but I typically use 1 recipe dough with half a recipe of filling to get about 8 dozen or so. A note on my recipe card says that in 1995 I used 1 recipe of filling along with 2-1/2 recipes of dough to get 223 tassies. If I am using metal mini-muffin pans, I spray with PAM. If I use my silverstone lined mini-muffin pans, I make the tassies using ungreased pans. With the all-metal pans, I let the tassies sit for about 10 minutes before removing them from the pan with the aid of a small metal icing spatula. If using my non-stick silverstone ones, the tassies do not have to sit more than a couple minutes, and I use a plastic knife to help remove them.
PS: I use a wooden tamper to form the dough balls into the mini-cups so the heat of my hands will not make the dough tough. If I need to dip the tamper, I dip it into powdered sugar instead of flour--again, to prevent toughening the dough/crust.
