This weekend was one of those weekends where everything felt possible. Piercing blue skies. Bright, warm sun. Crystal clear waters. It was a perfect excuse to head off the Island and spend the afternoon roaming around the ‘mainland’. A few hours later, I had snagged up several pints of gorgeous organic strawberries and my favorite mascarpone cheese. I knew exactly what was next.
Given the delicate and insanely creamy nature of mascarpone, triple cream purists would likely not fuss one bit more with such a splendid gift from all those well-fed cows in Lombardy. But I was feeling quite determined and thought a nice, happy-go-lucky, tart would be just the ending for such a happy day.
Mascarpone Strawberry Tart
Tweaked from Sunset Magazine, June 2005, yields 8-10 servings
This recipe cheats a wee bit with the quick crust, so try to get some higher quality wafers. The chocolate combined with the mascarpone and strawberries – they were all made for each other. A plain, butter crust would only be second best (and much more work) next to this fierce combination. You can make this tart up to one day ahead and top with strawberries just before serving. So easy, so delicious!
Music Pairing: Here Comes the Sun, The Beatles, Abbey Road
Ingredients
- 9 ounces chocolate water cookies, broken into 1/2 inch pieces
- 8 tbsp unsalted melted butter
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp instant espresso powder
- 16 oz mascarpone cheese
- 1/3 cup good honey
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- zest from 1 lemon
- 2 cups strawberries
Method
- Preheat oven to 325°. Place cookies in a 1-quart zip-lock plastic bag and seal. With a rolling pin, crush cookies into fine crumbs. Pour 2 cups of the crumbs into a bowl and mix with melted butter, sugar, and espresso powder. Press mixture evenly into bottom and up sides of a 9.5-inch tart pan with removable rim (if you prefer a thinner crust, use a 10-inch tart pan).
- In another bowl, with mixer on medium, beat mascarpone, honey, and vanilla until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in flour and salt.
- Place tart pan in a 12- by 16-inch rimmed baking pan (do not, under any circumstances, skip this – the pan catches any drippings from the filling and prevents the crust from overbrowning) and set on center rack of preheated oven. Pour filling into chocolate crust. Bake until filling is pale golden and barely set in the center when you gently shake pan, 30 to 35 minutes.
- Remove tart from oven and let cool on a rack about 30 minutes, then chill until cold, at least 1 hour, or up to 1 day (cover tart once cold).
- Shortly before serving, remove rim from pan. Rinse, stem, and thinly slice strawberries. Arrange in a circular or spiral pattern on top of the tart, overlapping slices slightly.
What a dessert!! I almost had to be restrained from wolfing down the entire tart.
all true, i can vouche for that.
looks absolutely delicious .. Laila .. http://lailablogs.com/
hi laila – and it tastes just as good – hope you get a chance to try it!
This looks fantastic! I can’t wait to try this thinking about surprising my brother with it for his b-day at the end of May…
The site looks fantastic by the way – I love the tone, the pictures are deee-lectable, and all the great tips and content are awesome. Also am a big fan of the food + music pairings – the best thing we ever did was get wireless speakers in our kitchen…music and cooking are a perfect combo : )
I’m a big fan
: ) ch
Hi Cecilia! Glad you are enjoying the site. And hope you enjoy the tart if you end up making it for your brother (too bad the mascarpone does not firm up enough for birthday candles)! And I totally agree – the right/wrong tunes can make/break the entire mood of preparing/cooking/enjoying the food!
hey! wow! professional! blog very very nicely done!
WOW, this is beyond the beyonds. It looks amazing!
and so, so simple!
This looks lovely. I will have to try it soon. :)
hi tien – i hope you do! i think you’ll love it as much i do!
Yikes, this looks good! I’m such a novice when it comes to baking with marscapone, but this sounds like such a good recipe now that the first strawberries are ripening!
Thanks for sharing!
-Siri
[...] and the talent show was a Mascarpone Strawberry Tart, which I made from a recipe I found on a cooking blog (that was tweaked from a recipe in Sunset Magazine, 2005). It’s a great summer tart, [...]
Mascarpone and strawberries great combination.
Love your posts..always intelligent, well written and beautiful to see. This is just so appealing! need some gorgeous berries? Thanks, s
thank you so much, i’m glad you are enjoying them! now…hopefully berries will be showing up in beautiful santa barbara soon so you can try this out!
This dessert is absolutely delicious! I got a lot of compliments from my family for it. Thanks so much!!
[...] combines two of the recipes I loved on Giao’s site. The crust comes from one recipe and the filling comes from another. I would like to try the chocolate crust at some point, but today is not the [...]