What’s cooking today: Strawberry tart

Tony Jackman’s strawberry tart, a cake-like dessert. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

By Tony Jackman

19 Dec 2023

We’re celebrating five years of TGIFood this week, and here’s a fruity tart that uses seasonal strawberries, an ideal dessert for the festive season. The recipe was first published in November 2022.

This looks like a cake but is really a pudding that gets pleasantly gooey in the middle and at the bottom. Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

Strawberries are ripe, sweet and abundant right now. Like cherries, they are one of those sunny fruits that don’t need any attention. Just as nature gives them to us, they’re ready to give us as much joy as we get from a bite into our favourite chocolate; just as they are, au naturel.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t use them in recipes too, and their light freshness makes them a luscious ingredient for this tart which is much like a cake, though there’s a gooey texture to it that makes it more suitable as a dessert.

I made it and then took it along to friends who’d invited us to dinner, so I served it on their lovely vintage crockery.

Ingredients

400 g fresh strawberries, hulled

3 Tbsp Pineau de Laborie liqueur wine or similar

2 Tbsp castor sugar

125g butter, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup castor sugar

2 jumbo eggs plus 2 yolks

A grinding of salt

225g (1 ½ cups) self-raising flour

⅓ cup mascarpone whisked into ⅓ cup cream

1 Tbsp cornflour mixed with 1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

Method

Tony Jackman’s strawberry tart, a cake-like dessert. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Reserve 6 good-looking strawberries. Hull and quarter the rest and put them in a bowl. Stir in the liqueur wine, sprinkle 2 Tbsp castor sugar over, stir, and leave to steep for 5 hours. Strain them through a fine sieve but retain the strained liquor, which will have taken on the flavour of the strawberries.

Preheat the oven to 180℃. Grease the bottom and sides of a 23cm round springform cake tin and line the sides and base with baking paper.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, vanilla essence and 1 cup of castor sugar until pale and creamy.

Add the eggs, one at a time, then the two extra yolks, beating well after each addition.

In another bowl, whisk the mascarpone and cream together until well combined.

Add half the flour and salt to the creamed butter and egg mixture and beat until just combined. Now fold in half of the mascarpone/cream mixture.

Add the remaining flour followed by the remaining mascarpone cream.

Sprinkle 1 Tbsp flour over the strained strawberries and stir to coat.

Fold them into the cake mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth the top.

Mix the 1 Tbsp cornflour with 1 Tbsp grated lemon zest. Now mix 1 Tbsp castor sugar with this and sprinkle the mixture on the top of the mixture in the tin.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a thin crust has formed on the top. Arrange halved strawberries, cut-side down, on the top of the cake, pressing slightly into the crust. Sprinkle with golden brown sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature. I served it with the leftover maceration liquor stirred into fresh cream. DM/TGIFood

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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