Tart cherry mascarpone custard torta (and one more)

Mascarpone here we come! I don’t typically keep this Italian style cream cheese on hand as a staple ingredient but, when I’ve used it for a specific project, there are usually leftovers that are begging to go into something delicious.

I’ve had mascarpone on the brain for a while now. It all started with a full day of three demo sessions for a local seniors group back in April. In addition to a couple of savory offerings, I prepared and served whipped lime mascarpone cream vol-au-vents topped with fresh strawberries. During the ensuing days I used the leftover mascarpone for a home freezer stash of strawberry lime mascarpone ice cream and some delightful raspberry teacakes (more on that later).

As it turns out, I still had one unopened tub in the fridge and - wouldn’t you know it (I believe it was kismet!) - a request came in to create something delicious for my cousin Mary’s afternoon book club group. You can guess where this is going.

*Just a quick note about mascarpone’s shelf life - if it remains unopened, it’s fine in your fridge for awhile - the use by dates are typically some months out. BUT . . . . once opened and the plastic sealer is removed it’s best to use it within 5-7 days. If I’ve used only a portion of the tub, I press plastic wrap directly on the surface to exclude air which helps keep it’s texture until I’ve finished it off.

Most commonly found brand on grocery store shelves

Purchased mid may - use by date 9/14/26 - if unopened!

Let’s get on with it! I had pasta frolla, Michigan tart cherries (the end of last year’s crop) and oat crumble in my freezer so, along with the unopened tub of mascarpone, I had a clear vision for the book club dessert. With a few additional ingredients always at the ready (cream, sugar, cornstarch, egg, lemon zest and vanilla) I was set.

Here’s the recipe PDF which includes all the components - if you prefer not to read through the entire post, you can go right to it and get to work on your own torta!

The book group torta

Cousin Mary’s book group gave the torta a thumbs up so, as Memorial Day approached, I thought it fitting to make another one for a family gathering at cousin Jen’s cottage! Yippee!

Let’s walk through the steps - or you can go to the full recipe here.

I decided to use an 8” springform pan so I could build up the sides a bit deeper than I might with a standard tart ring. I ended up using about 280-300 g of pasta frolla (the same dough I used for the crostata della Nonna last October). I lightly buttered the bottom of the pan and lined it with a parchment round.

Roll the dough to about a 10” circle 4-5 mm thick and ease it into the form. I wanted a height of about 1.25” so gave myself plenty of dough to work with. Score the dough at your desired height then remove the excess. Save scraps to re-roll for cookies or petite tarts.

Starting the lining

Here it is all neatened up with a distinct edge. Prick all over with a fork. I always place my lined form in the freezer while my oven is heating to 350ºF (325º convection) - it helps the dough keep its form during baking.

Ready for blind baking

Ease your parchment round into the pan, snugging it up against the dough. Fill with weights.

Bake 20 minutes, remove from the oven and gently lift out the parchment/weights. You want the edges of the dough starting to set. The bottom will still look wet but continue to bake without weights another 10-15 minutes until it looks dry.

Egdes set, bottom needs more time

OK now we’re on a roll

At this point you have the option to let it cool and refrigerate it overnight (or freeze for up to a couple of weeks) if you wish to complete the project later.

If proceeding with filling and baking, make the mascarpone filling. The shell does NOT have to cool completely before filling with the custard and baking.

Here’s the mise for the filling . . . . I didn’t use lemon zest in this one.

In a medium bowl blend 75 g / 1/3 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar with 3 tablespoons cornstarch and a pinch of salt. Whisk in 2 large eggs and 3/4 teaspoon vanilla. Lemon zest is an option and would be added here as well.

Blend in 170 g /3/4 cup mascarpone and 170 g /3/4 cup heavy cream

You can make the filling a day or several hours ahead and hold it in the fridge. Simply stir it back up to re-blend before pouring into the blind baked shell.

Ready for the oven

Bake at 350ºF (325º convection) about one hour - start with 25 minutes (it will still be quite jiggly), rotate the tray, allow another 25 minutes (should be setting around the edges and browning), rotate again then finish with another 10 minutes or so. Look for a nice golden brown surface and only a hint of jiggle in the center.

Now we’re talking!

I loosen the outer ring of the springform and let the torta cool to room temperature. Remove the ring. You can hold the torta in the fridge until the next day if you’re not ready for garnishing.

I make my cherry filling earlier in the day or the day before and keep it refrigerated. Spoon a layer of cherries over the center of the torta, leaving an inch or so clear around the edges. Sprinkle oat crumble around the edges then dust that with powdered sugar. TIP: hold a small bowl over the cherries while you dust - keeps them nice and cherry-y.

Slice and serve . . . . . the marriage of tart cherries, crunchy crumble, creamy filling and buttery crust can’t be beat.

Leftovers will keep for a couple of days in the fridge although the cherry topping/sauce may get a tad more runny.

Yum!

Whoa! That one went on didn’t it! But there’s one more thing.

To help you use up any of your own mascarpone here’s a straight forward mascarpone cake that serves as a great blank canvas for adding fruit, nuts, and/or topping with various swirls of delight. The recipe makes one 8” or 9” cake or about 30 small teacakes.

As many of you know, I prefer baking petite teacakes versus a large sliceable cake. These do not disappoint.

For these babies I turned back to an oil based mascarpone recipe I originally found at “An Italian in My Kitchen” about seven years ago. The site is chock full - the section on cakes alone will knock your socks off.

I’ve made it a number of times over the years, tweaking ingredients here and there (e.g. melted butter for the oil; different combos of mascarpone/yogurt/heavy cream; adding chopped nuts and/or fruit). It’s quite adaptable.

Below is the mise for my current iteration of the recipe. Don’t let the 8” springform distract you - I ultimately topped that one with a lovely thin-ish layer of lemon Swiss meringue buttercream and a few chopped candied pistachios. Darn - I didn’t take photos. Sometimes I simply get lost in the moment.

No worries. The mise remains the same for the teacakes - recipe makes about 30.

I’ve thrown enough at you so I won’t take you through the steps - just follow the recipe and create your own version. For these I piped the batter into flexi mini muffin molds, pressed some frozen raspberry pieces in and baked ‘em. If you’re not ready to garnish and serve them, they keep very well in the freezer for a couple of weeks.

When you’re ready, thaw and garnish as you wish. Here I drizzled them with caramel then gave them a nice cap of raspberry/tart cherry Swiss meringue buttercream. You could even sprinkle on some chopped pistachios.

I served these at our exercise facility as a treat for friend Kim’s last day working there. We miss her!

Until next time! Ciao.

Sour cherry and farmer’s cheese tart

As a result of my mid-summer browsing in the baking and pastry book section at our nearby East Grand Rapids Library, I discovered an intriguing Nordic collection of very interesting baked goods. It reminded me so much of our trip back in the spring of 2022 when we enjoyed a variety of delicious treats throughout Scandinavia (and elsewhere!).

Just one of the many options in Nevada Berg’s “Norwegian Baking”, this recipe gave me a great excuse to use some of this year’s tart cherries now resting in my freezer. I was so taken by the offerings in the book that I purchased my own copy using an early August birthday gift card. Yes!

This treat combines a sweet pastry dough and a sour cherry compote made by combining cherries and sugar, cooked to thicken. Then there’s a layer of farmer’s cheese (a somewhat-drier-than-ricotta curd-y product). Although one can make farmer’s cheese at home, I opted to purchase a farmer’s cheese from California which I found at our favorite Cheese Lady shop here in GR.

Starting the assembly

Here’s the full recipe PDF. A bit about the dough - the pastry for this one is much like a typical pâte sucrée, so common in French tarte recipes. I sub whole wheat pastry flour (also known as graham flour) for about a third of the all purpose - love the whole grain nuttiness it imparts.

I’m a big fan of Bob’s Red Mill but learned not too long ago that they’re no longer making whole wheat pastry flour. I found a milling company, The Birkett Mills, in NY state and ordered a quartet of 4 pound bags at a pretty decent cost, even with shipping.

Pay attention to the shelf life of this type of flour - whole wheat doesn’t keep as long as all purpose. But remember you can freeze it to prolong its freshness. I shared one bag with sister Joyce and I’m getting close to using up another. For the remaining 2 bags my autumn plans are robust for making a variety of tart and cookie doughs that I can hold in the freezer until ready to bake (including homemade graham crackers!).

As for butter, one thing I’ve noticed in many Scandi recipes is the use of “lightly salted” butter. I’ve begun to keep a Danish creamery style salted butter on hand for just such occasions. I also keep my eyes open for sales on Kerry Gold or Land-O-Lakes salted “extra creamy”. These salted butters are also great for a variety of cookies, especially classic shortbread or cookies that offer caramel-y or chocolate-y flavors. My mouth is already watering!

For this tart two thirds of the dough is rolled out to line the bottom and sides of a 9” springform pan. Cherries and crumbled cheese go in . . . . . .

Filling all in

and the other third of the dough is rolled out, cut into strips and latticed on top. Seal the edges with your fingers.

Brush with a bit of milk, sprinkle with raw sugar and bake at 350ºF for about 45-50 minutes.

Cool in the pan about 15 minutes, release and remove the outer ring then let cool completely.

For my unadorned first small sample taste I thought the dough was wonderful but the filling perhaps a bit dry. Steve disagreed. For a more composed offering, our enjoyment of the first full slices was of course accompanied by vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel. What can I say - it never gets old.

The good news - the flavors and textures continued to improve over the several days that this tart can remain covered in the fridge. Yay!

Lest you think all we do is eat dessert, think again! I space my projects out so we have small portioned treats every now and then. Taking desserts to family gatherings, sharing goodies with neighbors or the staff at our local health club and/or freezing the end results for a later date are great ways to avoid over indulging.

With a focus on moderation, regular exercise, using good ingredients, a diet that incorporates fresh fruits and veggies (local whenever we can) and excellent locally raised poultry (just to name a few), we’re doing our best to stay healthy. Gotta do it!

Autumn is coming!

This past weekend we enjoyed a lovely afternoon, a delicious supper and evening at the Lake Michigan home of one of my many cousins. After what has seemed like weeks of heat, humidity and not so great air quality, our group of twenty was so ready for the gorgeous weather, cool breezes, warm sun, beautiful waves and . . . . ahhhhh, the sunset.

Mid-ish summer check in

Hi all. Hope you’re staying cool and beating the heat the best way you can. I long for those perfect Michigan summer days that bring fresh breezes, crystal clear blue skies and low humidity. They seem few and far between this season.

I’m working on a couple of posts featuring goodies that incorporate tahini, honey and chocolate and hope to share them with you soon. I’m taking it slowly but surely - steady wins the race, right? But wait! I have a few summer treats that I’ll share with you now.

For July 4th I made my favorite tarte au citron and topped it with whipped cream and raspberries.

For serving I made a simple blueberry topping to dollop on each slice. Cool, creamy and delicious!

Picnic style!

In spite of the heat, we did have a day (or two) that actually lent itself to croissant making. I was prepping for a private croissant class with a soon-to-be junior in high school who has her sights set (possibly!) on pastry school. I hadn’t baked croissants for some months and it felt good to get the feel once more for the process of the beurrage and laminations. Here they are all proofed - check out those layers!

For a recent group dinner with some of our exercise buddies, Steve made a load of delicious panko crusted chicken tenders with roasted little potatoes. Host Shirley provided appetizers and made a lovely fresh green bean salad. I went with freeform cherry/berry puff tartes. Michigan tart cherries are available and blueberries are coming fast and furious. I love using the fruits when fresh but have also been getting freezer stock ready for autumn and winter projects.

I rolled out two 1/4 batches of puff (~300 g), using my 4”x11” tart form as a guide. I trimmed the edges away leaving a border outside the form to build up the edges. I saved the scraps to bake separately for my top decor. A slit at each corner allowed me to turn the edges over to create a thicker border.

After lifting the form out of the way, press down the turned in edges to create the rim. Then score lightly with a paring knife just inside the inner edges. This gives you some demarcation when baking and subsequently filling. Prick all over with a fork. I lightly brushed the puff with milk and sprinkled raw/golden cane sugar mix all over. I hold the puff in the freezer as my oven heats to 400º (remember - cold dough into hot oven - better puffing!)

Bake the unfilled puff at 400º about 20-25 minutes until nicely browned. If you’re a plan ahead-er, you can do this a day or two before and hold the baked puff in the freezer. Remove it when ready to add the fruit and pop into the oven.

Bake the edge scraps too - use for top decor if you wish.

I placed blueberry filling down the center then the cherry filling along the sides. Place into a 325º oven for 10 minutes or so to refresh the puff and set the filling.

Once cooled I placed the “scrap” strips diagonally across, crushed some of the extra baked scraps to sprinkle over all, then a nice dust of powdered sugar just because.

When baking free form puff shapes, I love the longer narrower versions like these - when slicing across, each serving has the benefit of TWO edges of puff (and the end portions get THREE!). So delicious with the fruit. Love that!

Serve slices with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and a few fresh blueberries sprinkled on top.

Finally, as often happens, I had egg whites in the fridge that needed to be used. Guess what - my favorite financiers were the choice once again. I had prepared a smallish batch of lemon curd for a lemon Swiss meringue buttercream (another good use for egg whites!). There was some left so I added about 3 tablespoons of that into my citrus zested financier batter after it had chilled overnight.

After piping the batter into muffin sized silicone molds, I topped each with an additional dollop of the curd and a few fresh blueberries. A top sprinkle of a mix of golden cane, coarse raw sugar with coriander finished ‘em off.

Bake at 375º about 25 minutes until golden brown. Let ‘em cool about 10 minutes then release from the molds and finish cooling on a wire grid.

Remember that lemon buttercream I just mentioned? I piped a swirl on one freshly baked cake so Steve and I could trial it. Yum. The rest went into the freezer ungarnished for more fun later.

Delicious!

Stay cool everyone! Until next time.

Here are a couple of images from our recent trip to visit family in New England.

Lovely window box in Chester Connecticut

Sunset near BAngor Maine

And finally - a recent daylily sighting. Cheers!