Stracciatella tart with strawberries

Stracciatella tart with strawberries is a wonderful tart filled with mascarpone cream and grated chocolate, topped with a generous layer of glossy strawberries. It tastes absolutely delicious and looks stunning! I highly recommend it for the upcoming Mother’s Day :).

Ingredients for the pastry:

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

Sift the flour into a bowl, add the butter and lard and quickly rub in or cut with a knife until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the icing sugar, salt and cold water and quickly bring together to form a dough (you can also make the dough in a food processor). Shape into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30–60 minutes.

Grease a 24 cm tart tin with butter and dust lightly with flour, shaking off any excess.

Roll out the chilled pastry to approximately 3 mm thick and use it to line the tart tin. Chill again for 30 minutes. Dust the chilled pastry lightly with flour, cover with baking paper and fill with ceramic baking beans (you can also use dried beans or rice).

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Reduce the temperature to 190°C, place the pastry in the oven and blind bake for 15 minutes. Remove the tin from the oven and carefully remove the baking paper and weights. Reduce the temperature to 180°C, return the pastry to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until golden and fully baked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

Ingredients for the stracciatella cream:

• 250 g mascarpone, chilled
• 250 ml double cream, chilled
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• 4 tbsp icing sugar
• 40 g milk or dark chocolate, grated

Place the mascarpone, double cream, vanilla and icing sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk until you have a smooth, thick and fluffy cream. Add the grated chocolate and fold through. Spread the cream over the cooled pastry case and smooth the surface.

To decorate:

• 550 g strawberries, hulled
• half a jar of strawberry jam, smooth and seedless

Arrange the strawberries on the tart – place one whole strawberry in the very centre, then arrange the remaining strawberries, cut in half, around it, angled slightly towards the centre, working outwards towards the edge of the tart. Warm the strawberry jam until runny. Brush the strawberries with the warm jam using a pastry brush. Refrigerate until chilled.

Stracciatella Tart with Strawberries should be stored in the fridge, but remove it from the fridge at least 30–60 minutes before serving, as the pastry becomes firm when chilled.

* Lard makes the pastry especially crisp and short, but you can replace it with an additional 30 g butter.

Enjoy!