Cream cheese and strawberry tart

This cream cheese and strawberry tart features a crisp, buttery pastry shell filled with a smooth cream cheese filling and topped with juicy fresh strawberries. Its flavour is quite different from a tart made with mascarpone, thanks to the distinctive character of Philadelphia-style cream cheese, which is slightly tangy and subtly savoury. It’s the perfect dessert for warm June days.

Ingredients for the sweet shortcrust pastry:

• 200 g plain flour
• 90 g cold butter, diced
• 30 g lard*, cold and diced
• 60 g icing sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 2–3 tablespoons cold water

Sift the flour into a bowl. Add the butter and lard, then rub them into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Alternatively, prepare the pastry in a food processor. Add the icing sugar, salt and cold water, then quickly bring the dough together. Shape into a disc, wrap in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for 30–60 minutes.

Butter a 24 cm tart tin and dust lightly with flour, shaking out any excess. Roll out the chilled pastry to approximately 3 mm thickness and line the tart tin. Chill again for 30 minutes. Lightly dust the pastry with flour, line with baking paper and fill with baking beans, dried beans or rice.

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Reduce the temperature to 190°C and blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes. Remove the tart shell from the oven, discard the baking paper and weights, then reduce the oven temperature to 180°C. Return the pastry to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until golden brown and fully baked. Leave to cool completely.

Ingredients for the cream cheese filling:

• 320 g Philadelphia-style cream cheese, chilled
• 125 ml double cream, chilled
• 60 g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Place the cream cheese into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until completely smooth. Add the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla, then whip until a thick, stable cream forms. Spread the cream evenly over the cooled tart shell.

To finish:

• 600 g strawberries
• a handful of flaked almonds
• icing sugar, for dusting

Hull and slice the strawberries, then arrange them over the cream cheese filling. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds and dust with icing sugar just before serving.

Store the tart in the refrigerator. For the best texture, remove it from the fridge 30–60 minutes before serving, as the pastry becomes firmer when chilled.

Note: Lard gives the pastry an exceptionally crisp and crumbly texture, but it can be replaced with the same weight of additional butter.

Enjoy!