Yogurt Puff Pastry Tarts with Mascarpone and Cherries

Carolina, author of the food blog La Cocina de Carolina, offers us a recipe that will captivate many: some of you will be impatient to make it right away, and many others will be eager to try it! Whether you're in the first group or the second, enjoy!

One of the things I like most about making desserts is preparing the dough with my own hands. Although ready-made dough is sold at any food store, making your own tartlet base really makes a difference. Not only because of the quality of the ingredients we use (the flavor of a dough made with good quality butter is unbeatable), but also because it allows us to add our personal touch. In this case I chose to add a couple of tablespoons of Greek yogurt to the base of these mascarpone tartlets, which makes them perfect for savory tartlets or cheese tartlets, as in this case.

To make the base we can choose two methods: either mix the flour and butter by hand very quickly (and dangerously if it's warm, because the butter would heat up too much and that's precisely what we don't want to happen), or use our food processor with the paddle attachment at low speed; this is the method I used for today's tartlets.

Ingredients

For the cheese cream:

380 g of mascarpone cheese
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
80 g of sifted powdered sugar
400 g of Greek yogurt
300 g of cherries (fresh or frozen)
1 extra tablespoon of powdered sugar

For the yogurt dough:

225 g of flour
125 g of butter in cubes (cold)
80 g of powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons of Greek yogurt
A very small pinch of salt

Preparation

Dough preparation:

We start by preparing the yogurt dough by placing the flour, butter and powdered sugar in our food processor with the flat paddle attachment at speed 2 out of 10, until it reaches a breadcrumb texture (we must be careful not to overmix the mixture because the butter would warm up and form a paste; if this happens, we can put the mixture in the freezer for about 15 minutes and repeat the process). Once we have the breadcrumb texture, we add the egg, salt and yogurt and continue mixing just until the ingredients have been incorporated.

We place the dough on a flat surface and flatten it with our hands forming a square, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

We divide the dough into eight pieces and roll each one between two sheets of non-stick baking paper to 4 mm thickness: for this we will use an adjustable rolling pin placing the ring for the indicated thickness.

Adjustable rolling pin Joseph Joseph, and Birkmann traditional removable tartlet molds

We grease our tartlet molds with a little butter and carefully place each rolled-out dough on them. Trim the excess edges and prick the base of the dough several times with a fork (this prevents air from getting trapped and the dough from puffing up in the oven). Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Cover the tartlets with baking paper and place some dried legumes on top (you can use rice, chickpeas or lentils) to weigh them down, or what is very practical, some ceramic baking balls specially designed for this, and bake for about 20 minutes, remove the weight and paper and continue baking for another 10 minutes or until the dough is lightly golden.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely before unmolding.

Mascarpone cream preparation:

Put the mascarpone, the vanilla extract and the powdered sugar in a large bowl and beat with our whisk mixer until the mixture thickens. Add the yogurt and mix again. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Mix the cherries with the powdered sugar and let rest for 10 minutes so they macerate well and release their juice. Divide the yogurt mixture among the unmolded tartlets and arrange the macerated cherries on top along with the syrup they released when mixed with the sugar.

Whisk mixer Kitchen aid