Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

I have always wanted to make one of those fancy fruit tarts that you see in French bakeries with the perfect crust and the glossy fruit. After picking two flats of berries, I had more than enough to try different recipes, so I picked out the prettiest ones to put on display on my tart.


We went to our favorite local fruit farm to pick some fresh berries, which is a very comforting and nostalgic activity for me as this was my first job growing up. I would pick strawberries straddled over the rows of berries for hours. So, leisurely picking two flats is a cinch.

We had a school picnic to attend, so I thought this would be a good seasonal dessert to bring along. I had saved aside this recipe from Food 52 for the perfect occasion and this was it.

I tried my best to arrange my strawberries nicely to match their pristine arrangement. Below is the Food 52 tart image followed by mine.  Not bad, right? The recipe is below and updated to include all the ingredients along with a few notes so go ahead and try your own strawberry t(art).

Recipe for Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

Adapted from Food 52

Ingredients:

Crust

2 tablespoons cream

1 egg yolk

1 stick of butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar 

1 1/2 cups flour

1 pinch salt

Filling

1 quart strawberries (washed, hulled and sliced)

8 ounces chilled mascarpone

1 tablespoon rum (I would suggest leaving this out)

1/4 cup sugar 

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

 Directons:

For the crust: Combine the egg yolk and cream. In a food processor, pulse together the butter, sugar, salt, and flour until you have something that resembles coarse meal. With the motor running, pour in the egg yolk and cream. Process until the dough comes together in a ball around the blade. Remove dough from the processor bowl. Bring together into a ball quickly. Press into an 8-inch removable-bottom fluted tart pan. Pierce lightly with fork all over the crust. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and cover the tart pan tightly. Freeze for at least two hours. 

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Bake the tart pan (on a baking sheet) for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking another 10 minutes. Allow the crust to cool completely. 

Combine the sliced strawberries with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Allow them to rest for 15 minutes. While the crust is in the oven, start on the filling. Combine the mascarpone,  2 tablespoons of sugar, and vanilla extract and whisk until glossy. (NOTE: the filling may separate if the mascarpone is not chilled so work quickly.) If you like the taste of rum, go ahead and include it, but I felt that even the small amount overtook the creamy mascarpone flavor too much. Taste and adjust sugar if necessary. Chill the filling while the crust cools. When the crust has cooled completely, spread the filling over it using a rubber spatula. Next, arrange the sliced strawberries over the the filling. Return assembled tart to fridge if not serving immediately, but it's best served the day it is made.

Meringues to Eton Mess

My inspiration to make meringues again was two-fold. First, my mum was visiting and was dreaming of Eton Mess, which she had last enjoyed on a trip back to England.  The second reason, is that I was recalling this idyllic food stand we visited in Covent Garden in London last summer and the dreamy piles of perfectly pink meringues. So, on a recent visit from mum, we decided that our dessert one evening would be Eton Mess.  

We made the incredibly easy meringue and spooned it onto the Silpats creating the fun little peak.

They bake at a very low temperature and we let them cool and dry. 

The last time I made meringues, we created little fruit bowl nests. This time, we broke up the pretty peaked meringues and made lovely Eton Mess parfaits.

Recipe for Meringues

Ingredients:

4 XL egg whites

1/4 t. cream of tartar

Pinch of kosher salt

1 C. granulated sugar or caster sugar, divided

1/2 t. pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats. In an electric mixer using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt on high speed until frothy. Add 2/3 C. of the sugar and continue beating on high speed until the egg whites form very stiff peaks. Whisk in the vanilla. Carefully fold the remaining 1/3 C. sugar into the meringue. Pipe or spoon onto the baking sheets.

Bake for two (2) hours or until the meringues are dry and crisp but not browned. Turn off the heat and leave the meringues in the oven for four (4) hours or overnight. 

For Eton Mess, mix with chopped berries (strawberries are traditional, but blackberries, raspberries and blueberries are great) and fresh cream made from heavy whipping cream whipped with a bit of powdered sugar and vanilla 

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

It's not very often that I have fresh picked fruit to bake with. The fresh strawberries and fresh rhubarb were a perfect combination. 

On a recent visit to my sister, she sent me home with several stalks of fresh rhubarb. Shortly after, we went to pick fresh strawberries in Northern Virginia with Miss A, who loved the experience (and the farm fresh taste testing). 

I referenced a Food Network recipe by Ina Garten that I thought was sure to be fail proof.  The flavor was great, but it did seem a little more runny than I would prefer. 

After I washed and cut up the fruit, I mixed the fruit in with the sugar, cornstarch and flour (I omitted the orange juice). Then, I mixed the crisp ingredients together until they held together nicely and packed it on top. It came out of the oven all bubbly and smelling like fresh jam. 

It was served with vanilla ice cream and resulted in early summer happiness.

Strawberry Ice Cream

This is most likely my last strawberry creation (at least this week). Strawberry season will last a little longer and I may be further inspired to try something else....a tart perhaps. After three batches of strawberry freezer jam, cookies and several fresh eaten strawberries, I decided to preserve the final few quarts of strawberries with cream, milk, sugar and pure vanilla in the form of some homemade strawberry ice cream.

I soaked the strawberries in sugar and fresh lemon juice all morning and mashed the strawberries to get some good juice to color the ice cream. I mixed the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla with the fresh strawberry juice and crushed strawberries and put it in my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

When it first comes out of the ice cream machine after about 25 minutes, it has a nice soft gelato like texture.

We sampled some and it was AMAZING and the rest went in a freezer safe container to freeze more to enjoy later.

Strawberry-Shortcake in a Cookie

I wanted to come up with something to bake for my dad for Father's day and received the "Cookie of the Day" e-mail from Martha Stewart for Strawberry-Shortcake Cookies. I don't always try the recipes or even save them to try later, but it's always fun to see different cookie ideas. Many of them are not traditional cookies, but it's always good to go beyond the everyday chocolate chip cookie and try something different. And, that's what I did.

My dad LOVES strawberry shortcake and could have it for dessert almost every evening (and most likely does most days). So, I thought it would be fun to try this recipe to give him his strawberry-shortcake in a cute little cookie.

I go to the farmer's market at least once a week and sometimes several times a week. With strawberries now in season, this was a good recipe to try. I also ended up buying over a flat of strawberries this past week, so there are a few more strawberry creations on their way. Fresh Michigan strawberries are SO much better than the grocery store variety shipped in from California or who knows where else. Even just having the flat of strawberries sitting out on the counter in my kitchen for a few hours, the sweet fresh smell was permeating through the house and brought me back to the days when my sister and I would pick strawberries as a summer job growing up.





This was definitely more of a biscuit-cookie and included the dry ingredient in which butter was cut in and then the fresh diced strawberries.



I made them without the use of the Kitchen aid as I didn't want to crush the strawberries. I cut in the butter with my pastry blender and then the cream was added. This was making the making of the shortcake and the whipped cream is just folded into it to give it a nice rich creamy flavor.




I used my cookie scoop to measure out the batter and place on the pan. I was careful not to have the fresh strawberries end up on the bottom of the cookie so they wouldn't burn while the cookie was baking. Before they went in the oven, I sprinkled some caster sugar (really fine sugar) on top which adds a nice glistening sugar and crunchy texture to the cookie.



Here are the cookies just out of the oven. They turned out nicely and tasted great, but were best warm. They also don't last too long with the fresh strawberry, but I suppose you could try freezing some, which I suggested to my dad if he wasn't able to finish them off very soon.




I have a few of the pretty strawberry quart baskets and chose to package them in there like the lovely quart of fresh berries used to make them.