This Easy Fruit Tart has a buttery
crisp shortbread crust, and the filling is simply a beaten mixture of heavy cream and
mascarpone cheese. The crowning touch is the fruit, and you can arrange the
fruit in concentric circles or rows, or to make things "easy", you can just pile
the fruit randomly on top of the cream.
Unlike the Classic Fruit Tart that uses a Sweet
Pastry Crust, this tart uses a
pre-baked shortbread crust, which does taste like a shortbread
cookie. It is so easy to prepare. Just give the ingredients a quick whirl
in your food processor until the pastry
starts to form clumps. Then simply press the pastry into your tart
pan. Place the crust in the freezer while you preheat your oven, and then
bake the crust until golden brown.
While the classic filling for fruit tarts may be
a pastry cream, I decided to use an uncooked filling made
by beating mascarpone cheese with heavy whipping cream, a little
sugar and vanilla extract. It is lovely; velvety
smooth and so creamy. Mascarpone cheese is
an ivory colored soft cheese that is thick and
velvety, with a sweet and buttery rich flavor. It is produced from cow's milk and has
a
texture similar to cream cheese. In fact, you can use regular cream cheese instead
of Mascarpone in this recipe. Mascarpone Cheese is typically sold in plastic eight ounce
(250 gram) tubs and can be found
in specialty food stores and in the deli section of some grocery stores. Once the filling is spread onto the baked
and cooled shortbread crust,
garnish the tart with fresh fruit. While I have used fresh
berries, you could use slices of kiwi, pineapple, banana, melon, plums,
mango, nectarines, or peaches.
Continue to the Easy Fruit Tart recipe page.....
Let's get baking!!
Stephanie Jaworski
