An Easy Berry Lemon Mascarpone Tart

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This berry lemon mascarpone tart is perfect for hot days and also for entertaining guests!  It is so easy to make!

My cousin’s wife found the recipe and introduced me to it – so far to date, only one person has not liked it! I just had to share it with you all because it is THAT good! Oh, did I mention it was easy to make? I know I did. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.

This tart uses a graham cracker crust – which is appealing to many as opposed to the plain pie/tart dough crusts (confession – I don’t like crust normally and usually just eat the filling, but I did eat this crust!)

The recipe is an adapatation of this Nerds with Knives Recipe and this Foodie Crush recipe.

For the Graham Cracker Crust:

• 1.5 cups (7oz) of crushed graham crackers
• 6 tbsp (85g) melted unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp (34g) brown sugar (light or dark)
• 1/4 tsp salt

For the Filling:

• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 8 ounces mascarpone cheese
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup lemon curd
• zest from half a lemon
• juice from one lemon (preferably one Meyer lemon)

For the topping:

• use whatever berries look good to you! Takes about 1 pint strawberries, 1 pint other berries.
• Sprinkle the top with the remaining zest from the other half of the lemon
• Garnish with mint leaves

Directions

For the crust: (You can use a rectangular tart pan, square, or round – so long as the bottom is removable!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F (or 325F convection oven).
2. Combine crushed graham crackers, salt, sugar and melted butter in a food processor.
3. Place crumbs into tart pan and evenly spread the crumbs.  Press them down to make a compact layer.  You want the crust to be about 1/4″ thick – so you may not use all of the crumb mixture.
4. Bake crust until it’s golden brown and aromatic, approximately 8-10 minutes. Take out from oven and let crust cool completely before filling. You may make it a day ahead of time and keep wrapped up at room temp.

For the filling

1. Beat the whipping cream and cream cheese together on high speed until soft and creamy, takes a few minutes.
2. Add the mascarpone cheese and powdered sugar and beat until mixed well.
3. Add the lemon curd, lemon zest, and lemon juice and mix until just combined.
4. Scoop the mixture onto the cooled tart crust and level it with a spatula.  Hold a little bit back in reserve – that way you can have some to hide some mistakes while spreading (I may have dragged a bunch of graham cracker crumbs onto the filling at one point – but you can’t tell because I saved some filling to I could hide my mistake!)
5. Chill in refrigerator for about 3 hours (or overnight!).
6. Place berries and garnish on top just before serving.
7. Serve chilled (I ate it after it had been out for 1.5 hours – it was still scrumptious! Although I preferred it straight out of the fridge)

This tart can be made a day in advance.  Or you can make the crust in advance and the filling the day of your event.  It just has to chill a few hours.  Add the berries at the last minute – you can do whatever fruit you want.  This tart is simply scrumptious!  If you want your fruit to look shiny like pastry shops, you can make a simple syrup by taking apricot jam and watering it down- then brush it on the fruit.

This is a great dessert to bring to parties.  It is light and refreshing – perfect for the hot Summer months that are coming soon!

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