Flavors and Moments brings us some tartlets that you will adore: using seasonal products you can prepare these delicious shortbread dough tartlets with mascarpone cream, delicious and easy to prepare. Following his advice I assure you that you will succeed!
With the arrival of good weather, fruit takes on a long-awaited role in my house, my children already know that at this time the bowls of assorted fruits on the kitchen counter is a common element... And the walks between meals to try them all , a classic!!
Cherries are now at their best and are the favorite of the boys in the house and, any dessert in the form of a cake, the passion of the girls…. So why not join them?
I bring you some super summery tartlets, which will also be a special dessert after a relaxed Sunday lunch in the garden, as the perfect snack after a refreshing swim in the pool… Or simply a whim that can be used at any time!
The cherries are bombs of flavor and, accompanied by the smooth and velvety raspberries, they are the perfect topping for these simple tartlets with mascarpone cream that are easy and uncomplicated to prepare. You can even leave the sablée dough made and stored in the refrigerator the day before and prepare them the next day when they are going to be consumed.
Presented like this in individual molds they look beautiful, although you can also prepare them in a large mold to serve directly on the table.
This basic recipe is ideal for all kinds of natural fruit tarts. In addition, it is more delicate than sweet shortcrust pastry, because it has the egg that provides softness and a little more sugar than the other. Although do not forget that the more sugar is added, the more difficult it is to roll out the dough and shape it as it becomes more brittle. For me, this amount of sugar in the dough is enough for it to be sweet and for the texture to be like a kind of cookie.
You can use a robot , but I always prepare it by hand and as Julia Child recommends in her book " The Art of French Cuisine " a good fraisage is needed at the end (it consists of slightly pushing the ball of dough with the base of the hand to ensure a perfect mix between fat and butter).
Especially now in summer it is necessary to work the dough quickly, so that the butter softens as little as possible. So come on, let's get our hands in the dough!!
Ingredients for 6 tartlets
Ingredients for the sablée dough
- 250g of flour
- 20g of cornstarch
- 125g butter (unsalted) very cold
- 90g icing sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 50g of ground almonds
- vanilla extract droplets
- 1 egg
Ingredients for the stuffing:
- clean cherries
- raspberries
- 250g mascarpone cheese
- 2 tablespoons of icing sugar
- 200ml whipping cream
- 50g raspberry jam
Tart molds with removable base
Preparation
- Put the flour, the cornstarch, the almonds, the sugar, the pinch of salt and the very cold butter in a bowl and begin to crumble with the fingertips to combine the dry ingredients with the fat until obtaining flakes similar to the oatmeal. This will take you a few minutes.
- Then add the beaten egg and vanilla and mix vigorously with your hand until you get a ball with the dough.
- Sprinkle a pinch of flour on the surface where we are going to work the dough and place our ball of dough on it. We begin to knead with the base of the hand (not the palm), pressing and sliding it forward about 15cm. You put it back together by working it for a moment repeating the process one more time and after putting it together again, we form a smooth ball.
- Dust it with a little flour and wrap it in transparent film. Put in the fridge for at least an hour. It can also be stored until the next day or even frozen (always airtight wrapped in parchment or parchment paper and a plastic bag).
- Once the tartlets are going to be baked, it is important to stretch the dough quickly so that it does not soften and it is difficult to handle.
- Put the dough on the work table sprinkled with a pinch of flour. If the dough is hard, give it a few touches with the rolling pin to soften it. For individual tartlets, I recommend cutting it into 6 equal pieces that we will stretch with the rolling pin in the center of the dough, moving it forwards and backwards, pressing firmly but gently. We are turning the dough over, passing the rolling pin over it and so on until we get 2mm thick and a diameter 5cm greater than that of the mold we are going to use.
- We line the molds (always with removable bottoms) placing the dough well all over the bottom and the walls of the mold, pressing lightly so that later when baking it does not come down. Cut the excess dough by passing the roller through the upper part of the mold. Store in the fridge if it is not going to be baked immediately or if we see that it has softened too much.
- We put in the previously hot oven at 180º for about 20-25 minutes or until we see that the bottom of our tartlets begin to brown. Remove and let cool completely on a cooling rack before adding the mascarpone cream.
- For the mascarpone cream, in a bowl, beat the cheese and icing sugar until smooth with a stick mixer. Add the cream and beat until the cream has a creamy consistency that can be spread.
- We assemble our tartlets filling with the cream cheese. We are decorating with raspberries and pitted cherries and cut into vertical pieces (gajos type). Then we heat the raspberry jam in the microwave for a few seconds to blend, and with a teaspoon we lightly bathe the tartlets and the fruit, to add shine, flavor and texture! A few mint leaves and ready to serve!
