Strawberry Mascarpone Tart with an Almond Shortbread Crust

Yes, I know. Strawberries in late August!? Especially after I recently championed the bounty of the late-summer micro-season to a national audience? Though I enjoy and recommend eating with the seasons. I'm not the most diehard, and I assure you, this purchase of California Driscoll berries was for a very good reason. I'll explain.

About a month ago I was out with my fella, his sister, brother, and sister-in-law Luigia, at the Quarry House, a former basement speakeasy and one of the best and oldest bars in the DC area that boasts a great beer selection, whiskey menu, rockabilly/honky-tonk Saturday nights AND Old Bay tater tots. It was indeed, a Saturday night, and we were enjoying our Clipper City Ales, sampling the whiskey and dancing to some real genuine Southern rock. Back at the table, trying to hear each others' jokes over the loud music, all of our phones (except Luigia's) went off at once. We checked our messages to discover that we had all gotten the same text, from, of course, Luigia: "Don't forget my birthday party August 11." I put it in my calendar then and there.

Luigia is a wonder of a gal. She's Italian, and though she learned English within the past few years, she still manages to be utterly hilarious in a language not her own (Quite a challenge as I remember from my study abroad days, where I could only eek out a few lame French puns). She's fun and caring and strong-- just pretty radical all around. I was not gonna miss her birthday. And I was going to make her a birthday treat.

When the party weekend rolled around a month later, I asked Luigia what kind of pie/tart/cake she wanted. She said she liked fruit tarts and loved strawberries. So of course a strawberry tart it was for the birthday girl. When I found this recipe for a strawberry mascarpone tart with almond shortbread (& a brilliant red strawberry simple syrup!) I knew it hit a trifecta of Luigia's loves--the crust especially, as she had really dug the grapefruit-ginger marmalade with almond shortbread crostata I'd made back in the spring. As usual I was snapping these shots in a hurry before rushing off to the party, so please excuse the slight blur, but this recipe is no slouch.

Strawberry Mascarpone Tart with Almond Shortbread Crust
Adapted from Dust Jacket 

Makes 1 11-inch tart

Ingredients
For crust:
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour, sifted
1 c. almond meal (make your own by grinding almonds in the food processor)
3/4 c. confectioner's sugar 
10 Tblsp. (1 stick +2 Tblsp.) butter
4 egg yolks
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
1 T. ice water

For filling:
1 c. heavy whipping cream
1 c. confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 vanilla bean, split in half and seeds scraped
3 c. mascarpone
2 Tblsp. lemon rind
1 lb. strawberries (3 1/2-4 c.), hulled and halved

For strawberry simple syrup: 
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. water
3/4 c. strawberries, hulled and quartered

Directions
1. Combine flour, almond meal, and sugar in a food processor and pulse until well combined. Add cold butter chunks to the almond mixture and process until mix is the size of small peas. Add egg yolks, extracts and ice water and pulse just until dough begins to form. Remove pastry dough from the food processor and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill for at least one hour and up to 1 day.

2. After dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease the bottom and sides of an 11-inch tart pan. Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper and transfer to the tart pan, forming the crust up the sides (dough will be crumbly, so you may have to piece it together). Fold dough over the sides to ensure that the tart will have a strong edge. Prick all over the bottom with a fork. Chill for 30 minutes.

3. Line the pastry with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove paper and pie weights and bake for 10-12 minutes longer until golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.

4. While tart is baking, make the strawberry simple syrup.  Place sugar, water and strawberries in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Boil for 10-15 minutes until thickened. Strain out strawberries and let cool.

5. For the filling, place cream, confectioners sugar and vanilla bean seeds in a medium size bowl or bowl of a stand mixer and whisk until soft peaks form. Stir in mascarpone and lemon rind  until just combined.  Spoon mascarpone cream into the cooled tart shell and smooth with a knife or spatula. Top decoratively with the strawberries. When ready to serve, drizzle with the simple syrup.

Looking for more strawberries? Try the Nothing-in-the-House Strawberry Crème Tart or our Strawberry Icebox Pie. Or maybe it's the almond shortbread crust you're after? Then get to this Almond & Grapefruit-Ginger Marmalade Crostata.

Strawberry Crème Tart

I'm sitting in my non-air conditioned third floor room, sweating, and thinking about last weekend. It's not that the weekend wasn't hot too--our air conditioner has been broken since Friday night. But in a way, the heat made those non-work days all the more summer-glorious. As the first (unofficial) weekend of summer, I hope it will prove to be a harbinger of many perfect summer weekends to come.

On Saturday morning (after a going away party with this chocolate & strawberry pocky pie), I got up and went to the Mt. Pleasant Farmers' Market, where I picked up a quart of strawberries, a bunch of asparagus, and a hot Asian bun; ran into friends at the coffee shop; went home; wrote; and read in the hammock for a few hours. Not too shabby. Sunday, though, was the quintessential summer day, with a trip to the doughnut shop (Woodmoor Pastry Shop) en route to a private swimming hole outside of Columbia, Maryland. I had been given scant directions (which added to the fun), so I wasn't sure we'd even find it and even when we did finally come upon the little quarry in the woods, we were initially reluctant to jump in, due to snake sightings and pond murk. But we trekked around to where the water was clearer, colder, and sunlit, and dove (or shimmied, rather) in. On the way home we stopped at both the nearby roadside biker bar and ice cream stand and filled ourselves with beer-by-the-bucket and chocolate-vanilla twist cones, respectively.

But that was just the warm-up for Tex Critter and the Snake Motel Six (the group name that emerged, as group names often do, when snakes and woods walks are involved), 'cause there was a a full-fledged stoop-side cook-out in the works. The menu included but was not limited to: dogs and brats, homemade potato salad, grilled asparagus, baked beans, watermelon salad, and a whole lotta Budweiser. The whole shebang went late into the night, capped off with a few rounds of Mad Libs and a game of 1990s-era Trivial Pursuit.

It could really have only been more perfect if I was able to tell you that I made this strawberry crème tart for said cookout. But there was not enough time in our jam-packed day for that, and we ate choco tacos for dessert. In actuality, I made this strawberry crème tart the day before, for (another) going- away-party-that-wasn't.

For the recipe, I went back to my copy of Michel Roux's Pastry, which I haven't used as much as I should (the two recipes I've tried from it--a chocolate raspberry tart and apple tart-- were both stellar) and found a simple French-style strawberry tart, which uses both chantilly cream and crème pâtissière and plain, unadulterated strawberries. It's essentially the French version of strawberry shortcake, replacing the biscuit with pâte sucrée, whipped cream for a more refined "crème", but sticking with the heaping with fresh berries. Here's the recipe, adapted from Michel Roux.

Strawberry Crème Tart
Adapted from Michel Roux's Pastry

Ingredients
For pâte sucrée:
1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. butter, cubed and slightly softened
1 c. confectioner's sugar, sifted
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, room temperature

For chantilly cream:
1 c. whipping cream, chilled
1/4 c. confectioner's sugar
pinch of vanilla bean seeds, scraped from the fresh bean
 
For crème pâtissière:
3 large egg yolks
1/4 c. + 1 Tblsp. sugar
1/8 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (if you don't want to spring for vanilla bean, try using the zest of 1 orange instead)

For strawberries & garnish:
4-5 c. fresh strawberries, hulled
mint sprigs (for garnish, optional)
additional confectioner's sugar (for dusting, optional) 

Directions
For pâte sucrée:
1. Put flour in a mound on the counter or rolling mat and make a well. Add cubed butter, confectioner's sugar, and salt, and mix together with your fingertips until dough becomes slightly grainy.
2. Make another well and add the eggs, working them into the flour mixture with your fingertips until the dough begins to come together. When well combined, knead the dough a few times with the palm of your hand until smooth. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and let chill in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
3. While dough is chilling, you may want to prepare your the chantilly cream and crème pâtissière (see below). Once the dough is chilled, unwrap and roll out onto a floured surface until it forms a circle and is about 1/8-inch thick. Transfer it to a greased and floured 9- or 10-inch tart ring, and let chill in the fridge for 20 more minutes before baking.

For chantilly cream & crème pâtissière:
1. While dough is chilling, prepare the creams. For the chantilly cream, put chilled whipping cream, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla bean seeds into the bowl of a standing mixer and beat at medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Increase the speed to high and beat for an additional 3-4 minutes until the cream begins to thicken to form medium peaks. Do not overbeat. If you're not ready to use the chantilly cream right away, you can keep it in the fridge for p to 24 hours.

2. For crème pâtissière, whisk egg yolks and one-third of the sugar together in a bowl until mixture forms a light ribbon consistency. Whisk in the flour until well combined. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk with the remaining sugar and the vanilla bean. When it comes to a boil, immediately pour it onto the egg yolk mixture, stirring continuously. Mix until well combined, then return entire mixture to the saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Let bubble for 2 minutes, then pour into a bowl. To prevent a skin from forming, dust the crème with confectioner's sugar. Let cool to room temperature, then chill in the fridge until cold. It can be kept in the fridge up to 3 days. Make sure to remove the vanilla bean before you pour it into the pie crust!

For baking and assembly:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prick the base of the chilled pastry shell and line with parchment paper and pie weights. Bake for about 25 minutes, then remove parchment and pie weights and bake for an additional 15 minutes until crust is fully baked. Take from oven and let cool.

2. Meanwhile, halve the strawberries if they are large or leave them whole if they are large. In a medium bowl, gently fold the chantilly cream into crème pâtissière and fill the tart crust with the cream mixture. Arrange the strawberries on top of the cream, heaping them up in the middle. Return to the fridge to let everything set, at least 20 minutes, or eat right away (but maybe not if your kitchen is hot like mine!). Before eating, dust strawberries with confectioner's sugar and garnish with a few mint sprigs, if desired. Enjoy!

Considering the lack of air conditioning in my house at the time, this tart proved a little more challenging than it should have been, particularly because, as you'll notice in the recipe, I tried the pâte sucrée-making technique where you essentially make a pile of flour, then work in the butter and egg with your hands. Not so easy when it's 90 degrees in the kitchen! I got quite the hot buttery mess all over my fingers, but did eventually get the crust to form together.

And though I did chill both creams/(crèmes) for several hours, they started getting a little runny as soon as they hit the hot house temps. As you might be able to tell from the photos, I also got a little overly ambitious with the amount of crème/cream (I'm struggling with the appropriate spelling here, clearly) I scooped into the crust.

HOWEVER. Despite all these hardships, this tart is a delight, perfect for your Memorial Day cookout imaginary dessert, going away party that wasn't, or some party in the future that will actually happen.