The CREAM TART – heart-shaped recipe with tutorial is a delicious and truly scenic cake, made from two heart-shaped shortcrust pastry cookies filled with a delicate mascarpone and cream filling, then decorated with fruit, flowers, and cookies.
It’s a dessert that has been very popular on the web and has achieved great success. The creator is an Israeli woman, Adi Klinghofer, who cleverly decided to make a very scenic cake precisely with biscuit dough, giving it various fun shapes, personalized for every occasion like number-shaped ones, much appreciated for birthdays, or letter of the alphabet and heart shapes for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day.
I wanted to prepare it for a while but was waiting for the right moment, the little one’s birthday. I knew she would love it, and indeed she was amazed and delighted by the surprise. My idea was to make the letter N for her name’s initial or the number 13 for her age, but not having the template, I chose the heart which is much simpler.
It seems complicated, but it’s not at all. Just follow the recipe step by step, you need a well-compacted shortcrust pastry that doesn’t crumble and a cream that can support the weight of the biscuit dough, and in a few hours, you can create this wonder in the shape you desire.
If you liked it, go read the recipe!
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- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 1 Hour
- Portions: 6-8 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for the CREAM TART – heart-shaped recipe with tutorial
- 3 1/4 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 Large egg
- 3/4 cup Sugar
- 7 oz Butter
- 1 Grated lemon zest
- 1 tsp Liquid vanilla
- 1 cup Fresh liquid cream
- 8.8 oz Mascarpone
- 1/2 cup Powdered sugar
- to taste Rum flavoring
- to taste Strawberries
- to taste Blueberries
- to taste Raspberries
- 4 Edible flowers
- to taste Small cookies
Tools
You can find the heart-shaped mold here
for the decoration I used some plunger cutters which you can find here
- Stand mixer
- Rolling pin
- Mold – heart-shaped
- Scissors
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
- Cookie cutter
- Oven
Preparation for the CREAM TART – heart-shaped recipe with tutorial
To prepare the heart-shaped cream tart, start with the shortcrust pastry.
In the bowl of the stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or in a bowl with electric beaters, mix the sugar with the butter at room temperature cut into cubes, add the flavorings, the egg, and finally the flour, working the dough quickly until the flour is completely absorbed, achieving the classic shortcrust consistency.
If needed, use more flour, then wrap it in plastic wrap or parchment paper and let it rest in the fridge for over 30 minutes.In the meantime, prepare the heart-shaped template. If you have one, use a white cardboard, otherwise draw on a sheet of parchment paper.
To make the template I used a heart-shaped mold, with a pen I traced the outer design, then I outlined the edge freehand, about 1.6 inches, and cut it out with scissors.After more than half an hour, take the dough from the fridge and divide it into two portions. With the help of a rolling pin, roll out the first portion on a sheet of parchment paper to a thickness of about 4mm (0.16 inches), place the heart template and, with a smooth wheel and a sharp knife, cut the shape of your base.
Remove the excess dough and place the parchment paper with the template on a baking sheet.
Do the same with the other dough portion, making the second heart-shaped template, and with the remaining dough, make small cookies of various shapes.
BAKING SHORTCRUST PASTRY
Bake the two shortcrust pastry shapes in a preheated oven at 356°F for about 15-18 minutes, as soon as the biscuit dough is golden, take them out and let them cool before moving, otherwise, they will break.FILLING
In the meantime, prepare the filling cream.
Whip the very cold cream from the fridge in a chilled bowl with the powdered sugar and rum, beat until it becomes firm.
In another bowl, whip the mascarpone, then with a spatula, fold it into the cream with movements from the bottom to the top to avoid deflating it.
Transfer the cream into a piping bag with a large round nozzle.ASSEMBLY AND DECORATION
Carefully place the biscuit dough heart on a serving plate, decorate with many regular dollops the base, then gently place the other matching heart shape on top.
Continue to cover with regular dollops and then decorate as desired.
To decorate this type of cake, macarons, meringues, flowers, and lots of fruit are used. I used what I had at home: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, small cookies, and flowers.
But let your imagination run wild and decorate with what you like best!
Once ready, let the cake rest in the fridge for several hours before serving; this helps to soften the biscuit slightly, making it easier to cut and portion.
Advice and Variations
My advice is to decorate the cake the evening before with the cream dollops, and after resting, decorate with the flowers, fruit, and other ingredients a bit before serving so they don’t lose their freshness.
For other decorated cakes click here.
For other Valentine’s Day recipes click here
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Questions and Answers
Can I make the shortcrust base with cocoa?
Yes, just replace 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour with 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder.
Can I use a different filling?
Yes, you can add hazelnut paste, pistachio, or chocolate to the basic cream of cream and mascarpone, whatever you like best.
