Strawberry-Hazelnut Cream Tart

I have taken to making goodies every week for my husband to take to work as dessert. Old-fashioned? Perhaps. A great excuse for me to experiment with every delicious-looking recipe from the plethora of cooking magazines that we subscribe to? Absolutely!

When I asked DH last week what he wanted, the response was, "something fruity". Given that strawberries have recently come into season in the Southern states, they are available at all of our local markets at ridiculously discounted prices compared to the rest of the year. Strawberries it was...but what to make? After flipping through the May Cooking Light, I decided on this Strawberry-Almond Cream Tart. Despite the name of the magazine, I have found that CL recipes can sometimes use a little tweaking in order to make me comfortable with them, and hello - my husband is going to be eating a piece of this every day after lunch, something to keep in mind when determining where to splurge!

The recipe below includes my substitutions. This recipe only uses half of the strawberry "topping", so if you don't want to have any leftover, you can cut that part in half.

Strawberry-Hazelnut Cream Tart
Adapted from Cooking Light

Crust 9 Sheets Reduced-Fat Graham Crackers (crushed)
2 T sugar
2 T Smart Balance (or similar)
4 tsp water
Cooking spray

Filling
2.5 oz. Fat-free cream cheese
2.5 oz. 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

Topping
6 cups small fresh strawberries (hulled)
1/2 cup sugar
1 T cornstarch
1 T fresh lemon juice
2 T chopped toasted hazelnuts (we didn't have almonds so used hazelnuts, but either would be good)
Preheat oven to 350. To prepare crust, place all crust ingredients in a food processor and process until it comes together into a loose ball. Place the mixture in the bottom of a 9-inch tart pan lightly coated w/ cooking spray. Press the mixture into the bottom and slightly up the sides. Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool completely on a wire rack.

To prepare filling, combine cream cheeses, sugar and extracts in a medium bowl and stir until smooth. Spread mixture evenly over the cooled tart shell. To prepare filling, place 2 cups of strawberries in a food processor and puree until smooth. Combine the puree, sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir with a whisk. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for 1-2 minutes or until the mixture begins to thicken. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Combine the remaining strawberries with the lemon juice and toss to coat. Arrange the berries, bottoms up, in a circular pattern over the cream cheese filling. Spoon half of the strawberry glaze over the whole strawberries. Sprinkle nuts around the edges, cover and chill at least 3 hours (or overnight).

Bitter Chocolate Tart

This is the dessert that I made when we hosted the in-laws for Christmas Eve dinner, and I've been meaning to post it ever since. It's from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano cookbook, which until Christmas had been my current favorite. Since I've received the Babbo cookbook, among others, for Christmas, I have to admit this one hasn't been feeling the love. However, there are a ton of great recipes and I would highly recommend the book to anyone. The recipe section of this book inspired me to buy a tart pan...in August. It sat in the closet unused until I decided to try this recipe out. I'm not very confident in the baking arena, and making my own crust seemed out my league. I was surprised by how easy it was, once I let go of my fear of butter and decided to bite the bullet - it WAS for Christmas after all! One thing though - this receipe says that it serves 8. There were 7 people are our dinner, and we barely ate 1/3 of this, it's so rich that a little goes a very long way.

Bitter Chocolate Tart
From Mario Batali's Molto Italiano
Serves 8

For the pastry
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
9 tbl. cold unsalted butter
1/4 vin santo (or other sweet dessert wine)

For the filling
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
10 1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tbl. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. crushed anise seeds
1 tbl. anise liquor (I used Sambuca)

For the glaze
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsp. anise liquor
1 1/2 tbl. milk (or as needed)

To make the pastry, combine flour, salt, sugar and cinnamon in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With the processor running, add the vin santo and process until the dough comes together. Place the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten to a disk, wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Butter a 10-inch fluted (optional) tart pan. Roll out the chilled dough between sheets of plastic until you have a circle about 1/4 inch thick. Line the tart pan with the dough, trim off the excess and refrigerate 20-30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick the bottom of the tart dough with a fork, and bake 12 minutes, or until just set. Set the shell aside, and reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

To make the filling, heat the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Remove from the heat and add chocolate, stirring to melt. Transfer the chocolate to a bowl and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and yolk together with the cocoa, then whisk the egg mixture into the cooled melted chocolate. Add the crushed anise seeds and anise liquor, and stir to combine. Pour the filling into the tart and bake for 15 minutes, or until the filling forms a shiny skin and is slightly firm, but just a little loose in the middle (in my oven, this took 19 minutes). Cool the tart in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove the sides and cool completely.

To make the glaze, combine the sugar, anise liquor and milk, and whisk until you have a thin, pourable consistency; add a few drops more of milk if needed. Place the glaze into a small ziplock bag, and cut of just the tiniest piece of one corner. Pipe the glaze onto the cooled tart in whatever fashion you like. Allow the glaze to harden (about 5 minutes) before serving.

This tart is so amazingly delicious, and this is from someone who doesn't really love anything anise flavored. I made a "test version" of it and brought it to my office where there are people who claim to hate anise, and they didn't even know it was there. It doesn't flavor the tart, but I think it's one of those ingredients that you can't put your finger on but would miss if it weren't there. It's certainly enough on it's own, but to dress it up for Christmas Eve, we served it with a little homemade cinnamon whipped cream. It was definitely a perfect way to end the meal.