Hi guys!
I'm Laura Vitale, and on this episode of Laura in the Kitchen, I want to share with you,
my Lemon Curd and Strawberry Tart.
It's really easy to make, now there's no cooking involved, mainly because I already made the
lemon curd - and you can use homemade, which I do have a great recipe on www.LauraintheKitchen.com,
or you can buy store bought, it's completely up to you.
It's really beautiful and it's perfect for summer for entertaining, it looks absolutely
beautiful, but took hardly any time to put together, and hardly any effort.
Now, let's go over the ingredients so we can get started.
You'll need some mascarpone cheese, I've got some crushed graham crackers, some confectioner's
sugar, some semi-melted unsalted butter, I've got lemon curd, some seedless strawberry jam,
I've got pure vanilla extract, granulated sugar, touch of heavy cream, and I do have
some fresh strawberries and some fresh mint sitting in the back there because we don't
need them just quite yet.
Now let's get going on making the crust, I"m making a no-bake crust which is really easy,
and I do have an entire video dedicated to this but I figured it's just so easy to do,
might as well do it all at the same time.
So I've got my crushed graham crackers, you can use any kind of digestive biscuits or
those little Maria biscuits, they're called Maria cookies, they're delightful, really
delightful!
So you can use that and it would work really beautifully as well.
So I've got my butter and my granulated sugar.
And now, I'm just going to mix all this together until the mixture kind of resembles, almost
like wet sand, and it shouldn't take very long at all.
Beautiful.
Now, what I have here is a - get that out of the way - it's an 8 by 12 inch rectangle
pan that has a removable bottom - it's always a tongue twister for me - and that's going
to make a beautiful, beautiful tart, you could use a round, you could use whatever you want,
this is what I just happen to have on hand.
And I just think that it looks so pretty at the end, it makes me look so fancy, like it
took so much time to make this beautiful thing, when in reality, about ten minutes tops.
Which is what I like.
I'm going to take my mixture here, I want to get all of it out.
Just give me a second, going to get my blade out of here.
And I don't want to leave anything behind.
Now, once you have leveled it out as best as you can, sort of in an even thickness,
I just take my hand and I press this down and up the sides of my little tart pan.
Now that I have that ready, I just washed my hands and I am going to make my custard
right in the same food processor, I mean why not, if a little of the crumbs go in there,
I mean technically, all the same place, so it'll be okay.
I'm going to put in my mascarpone, which is beautiful Italian, kind of like cream cheese
but it's so much more velvety, it's so much smoother, there's just something about it
that I think is just exceptional, so I do absolutely love it and I do like to splurge
a little bit when I am able to find it.
You can make the same recipe using some cream cheese, but I just think it tastes so much
better and the consistency is so much better by using mascarpone, but you make that choice.
Confectioner's sugar.
As you can see, we are going to add pretty much everything in at the same time.
Small splash of vanilla, I've got my lemon curd in there and then I'm just going to add
a little splash of cream for now and then see if I need the rest.
Okay, put this on and let it whiz up until it's really nice, creamy and smooth.
That is beautiful.
And a delight!
Wow that is delicious!
Okay, just going to pour my cream mixture, trying to get around this guy right here,
my blade which I always think the blade is such a little tricky thing when it comes to
your food processor because it can be so dangerous to get it out.
But anyway, get everything out of here, really could not taste any better.
Sorry that my hand is a little bit messy, but that's okay.
Now I'm just going to smooth this out as best as I can.
Now I have some hulled strawberries here that I have just hulled and washed and they were
ready to go, and I am just going to, in no particular order, I'm going to just put these
all over my custard that just tastes like dreams, I mean it really does taste absolutely
incredible.
Just going to put them in no particular order.
Doesn't really matter, looks good, tastes even better.
Now what I've done with my jam, is I just placed it in a little bowl and popped it into
the microwave until it became a little bit runny, otherwise it would be difficult for
me to brush it on, and I'm brushing that onto my strawberries, it makes them really really
shiny and a little extra something sweet is perfect, so just going to brush them with
my jam.
And then we'll pop this into the fridge for a few hours.
Okay, now I'm going to pop this into the fridge, it needs to chill for several hours, otherwise
if you try to cut into this right now, everything will kind of fall apart, so I'm going to pop
this in and when it's ready to serve I'll cut you a piece and I'll show you what it
looks like!
My tart was in the fridge for several hours and you want to make sure that you don't serve
this too early, otherwise when you go to cut into it the crust is going to fall apart and
the filling is going to go kind of runny all over the place.
This is set beautifully, what I have here are some beautifully set mint leaves, how
beautiful are those?
And I'm just going to scatter these about because I just love the different colors,
and I just feel like it makes it look so much more festive and like, very fancy and little
do they know, it just took like four seconds.
Pop on a few mint leaves on your tart and it looks like it just came out of a gorgeous
bakery.
I did remove the sides off of my tart pan, and this is the beauty of a - any kind of
pan, a tart pan, a spring form pan with a removable bottom.
Because then you can get the whole thing out, you don't make a mess, it's just - you can
serve it right on the little metal plate, and it's easy peasy.
Look at that!
Mmm.
This has been waiting in my fridge for way too long.
Look at that, I actually managed to cut that strawberry perfectly.
So we have a strawberry, plenty of custard and a good amount of crust.
Oh yeah!
That is delightful!
The crust - think of it as like cookie crumbles, because that's the texture of it.
You could certainly use regular pie crust for this, I just happen to think that this
tastes a lot better, it's a lot easier, and it's a little bit more interesting than just
a regular pie crust.
Go to LauraintheKitchen.com to get this recipe, hope you have enjoyed spending time with me
and as always, I'll see you next time!
Bye bye!