STRAWBERRY CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE TARTS (WITH SHERRY)
Notes: These tarts remind be of the best strawberry ice cream I could ever hope to eat. The strawberries are blended right into the cream cheese filling and complemented by sherry, which is undetectable but enhances the strawberry flavor. And what goes better with strawberries than chocolate, hence the chocolate biscuit crust. The hardest part of this recipe is molding the tart shells. The key to getting the shells right is to gently adhere the crusts to the inside of the ring molds without a lot of pressure. They will get stuck if you press too hard and you won’t be able to get them out without breaking them. The other key is always use the dough while it is somewhat cold out of the freezer. If it gets too soft it will be hard to work with (without tearing) and you’ll end up easily pressing too hard and getting them stuck. If it gets too soft at any point while molding the shells just throw the dough back in the freezer for ~10 mins before continuing. The easy part is the filling, which is no-bake and doesn’t require a lot of care while mixing.
Just to enhance the pink color of the filling I ended up adding a few tsps of organic dragon fruit powder. Dragon fruit has a brilliant magenta color, but a very mild taste so it doesn’t add any flavor to the filling, and it’s a great way to add some color without using food dyes. This is completely optional as the filling will be a very pale pink without it, this just takes it up a notch. If you want to try it I’ve linked the dragon fruit powder I used here: Microingredients Organic Dragon Fruit Powder, 10 oz. You can also add it to smoothies to get some beautiful color there too.
As usual, ingredients where noted in grams were weighed and the cup measurements are approximations.
These tarts keep really well in the fridge for several days and you can cover and freeze them too.
This recipe makes ~12 four inch tarts. If you only want to make 6 just half everything.
Special Equipment:
4 inch perforated tart ring molds
Linked are the ones I have and use
Stand mixer
Electric hand mixer
digital kitchen scale
I use the OXO good grips 11 lb digital kitchen scale. I’ve found it to be both accurate and precise and a decent price for the quality.
Optional piping bags
Ingredients:
Strawberry sherry puree:
4 tsp corn starch
8 tbsp sherry
Sherry is a fortified sweet wine from Spain. You can find similar tasting wines at your local wine shop or grocery store.
566 g (~5 cups, or two 10 oz bags) frozen strawberries
1/4 tsp salt
Chocolate biscuit crust:
320 g (~1 and 1/4 cup) pastry flour
Pastry flour is preferred because of its lower gluten content, but AP flour is ok too.
88 g (~1 cup) cocoa powder
*I used Cocoa Rouge from Guittard, which is essentially Dutch processed but a bit more intense, bittersweet and reddish.
1/2 tsp salt 125g
200 g (~1 cup) granulated sugar
226 g (~1 cup) butter, cubed (room temp)
2 large eggs, room temp
Strawberry cream cheese filling:
452 g full fat cream cheese (this is two bars), softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt (I used pink Himalayan)
200 g white chocolate
220 g (~1 cup) heavy whipping cream, cold
300 g strawberry sherry puree
Optional Flower Decoration:
Handful of fresh strawberries:
50 g of dark chocolate
50 g of heavy whipping cream
Directions:
Strawberry sherry puree:
In a medium sauce pan on medium heat add in the frozen strawberries, and add a pinch of salt.
Separately mix the cornstarch and sherry together until the cornstarch is fully dispersed and then add it to the sauce pan and mix in. Keep cooking down the strawberries until the cornstarch mixture has gelled. About 3 mins.
Blend thoroughly in a blender.
Set aside to cool. You’ll have some puree left over after this recipe so keep it in the fridge to top anything creamy, as it’s the ultimate strawberry sauce.
Chocolate biscuit crust:
Preheat oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with silicone air mats or parchment paper.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on low speed combine flour, cocoa powder, salt, and sugar.
While on low speed, add the butter in several pieces at a time. Keep mixing until you get a fine crumbly mixture, like wet sand.
Then add the eggs and continue mixing, until the dough comes together in a mass, about 1 minute.
Split the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and cover each half with a second piece of paper and roll each half out until they are ~3-4 mm thick. Cut out the circular bases of the shells with a tart ring mold and then chill the sheets in the freezer for 15 mins before handling the dough circles. Place the dough circles onto baking trays covered with parchment paper or silicone air mats
Cut strips of dough for the crust portion (make sure they’re a little wider than the height of the tart ring molds). Also chill these in the freezer for 15 mins before handling them. You can reroll and chill the dough a couple times (as needed) to get 12 bases and crusts. If the crust strips tear while you’re molding them, it’s ok, just pick up another piece and gently press it back together in the tart ring mold. Remember, not too much pressure or they’ll stick to the molds after baking, and you’ll have to break them to get them out. Trim off the excess crusts with a knife.
Center and press the tart ring molds, with the crusts inside, down into the circular bases you cut out earlier. Stamp a fork several times into the base of each tart shell to perforate them.
Chill each tray with the assembled tart shells in the freezer for 15 mins before baking.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans about half way through. After cooling gently push the crusts out of the molds and they are ready for the cheese cake filling. If you find that some of the tart shells are stuck you can try to use a small knife and gently run it around the perimeter of the molds to help free them.
Cheesecake filling and assembly:
In a large mixing bowl use a hand electric mixer to beat the cream cheese, strawberry puree, vanilla and salt until somewhat smooth. A little lumpiness is ok at this stage as it will get smoothed out when the white chocolate and cream are added.
Melt the white chocolate in the microwave starting with a 30 second burst, then mix thoroughly, followed by a 20 second burst, again mix thoroughly, and one additional 20 second burst (if needed) to get a smooth melted mixture. Transfer the melted white chocolate to the cream cheese filling and thoroughly mix in.
Finally whisk in the cold whipping cream until the mixture has formed soft peaks and looks silky smooth.
Fill tart molds with strawberry cream cheese filling and refrigerate the tarts for at least 1 hour before eating. You can fill the shells by transferring the strawberry cream cheese filling to a piping bag, or you can spoon some into each shell and smooth out with a knife. Using a piping bag just makes the whole process less messy and more consistent.
The optional strawberry flower decoration is the final touch - Cut fresh strawberries into slices across their widths for the flowers, then prepare a chocolate ganache (50% dark chocolate and 50% hot heavy cream) to pipe the stems and leaves: Add the dark chocolate (cut into small pieces) to a small mixing bowl. Heat the cream in the microwave for 60 seconds and then pour it on top of the chocolate. Let the hot cream melt the chocolate for 2 mins before mixing. Mix thoroughly until the ganache is silky smooth and it’s now ready to pipe.