Strawberry Tartlets with Lemon Cream Cheese

With summer drawing to a close, I find myself scrambling for fresh fruit, heaping extra blueberries on my cereal and making desserts with plums or raspberries taking center stage. One of my favorite fruit desserts is a tart or tartlet loaded with whatever fruit is in season and a simple filling of cream cheese or custard. Especially, I love a strawberry tart, made with the choicest of bright red berries, their color highlighted by a glaze of melted red current jelly.

True, strawberry season is over. It is in late spring and early summer when these luscious berries are at their best. Modern farming methods have made this fruit available all year round, but I’m not a fan of buying it in the dead of winter. Yet, as the first nip of autumn fills the air, reminding me of some of the dreary and rainy days to come, I hanker for strawberries.

I make my tartlet shells using Martha Stewart’s recipe for pate brisee, which seems to be the go-to recipe for pie-dough. Pate brisee is the French version of a classic pie or tart pastry. You press the dough into a disc rather than a ball before chilling it in the refrigerator, which helps it chill faster. The recipe makes 1 double-crust or 2 single-crust 9 to 10-inch pies, so I halve the recipe to make 4 4-inch tartlets. Of course, if you want to make 6 or 8 tartlets, use the whole recipe. You can find it here.

Strawberry Tartlets with Lemon Cream Cheese

Makes 4 4-inch tartlets

For the filling:

9 ounces (250g) cream cheese, at room temperature

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon good quality vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Cream all of the ingredients together in a small mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Spread into cooled tartlet shells.

Cut strawberries lengthwise into quarters and arrange on top of the cheese in a pyramid shape.

To give the tartlets a glaze, melt 3 tablespoons of red currant (or other red jelly) with one tablespoon of water and brush over strawberries with a pastry brush.

Tagged as: cream cheese, lemon, strawberries, tartelet