Berry and mascarpone tarts recipe

This berry and mascarpone tarts recipe from TV chef John Torode makes a lovely light summer dessert.

These little berry and mascarpone tarts recipe are just a joy. Buttery and sweet and soft and comforting – what more could you want?

The key to their success is the combination of sharp yet sweet fruit and a whipped cream filling, and not being too precious about how they look. The pastry can be a bit wonky but the soft fruit is so pretty it doesn’t matter.

To make this, you will need one 12-hole jam tart tins and a fluted cutter

Ingredients (makes 12)

For the pastry:

500g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

Pinch of salt

250g softened butter, cubed

150g icing sugar, sifted

4 egg yolks

50ml water

For the filling:

300g mascarpone

120ml double cream

50g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod, slit lengthways and seeds scraped out

2 small punnets of berries (raspberries and blackberries – or whatever is in season), washed

1 x 200g tin cherries in syrup, drained

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C/gas 6.

Make the pastry, sift the flour and salt onto a worktop.

Make a well in the centre, add the butter and icing sugar and gently work them together with your fingertips.

Add the egg yolks and gradually draw in the flour, adding drops of the water as you go, until a dough forms.

Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

On a lightly-floured worktop, roll out the pastry and use a fluted cutter to cut out circles large enough to line the cups of a 12-hole jam tart tin (the cutter should be just a bit bigger than the size of a hole – normally about 6cm).

Bake in the oven for 10–12 minutes – they’ll puff up in the centre.

Take the tin out of the oven and push the centre down with a piece of baking paper, then put them back in the oven and bake for a further five minutes to cook the pastry completely.

Turn the pastry cases out of their tins onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

To fill and top the tarts, beat the mascarpone with the cream, sugar and vanilla seeds until fluffy.

Spoon some of the filling into each tart and top with berries and cherries.

Recipe courtesy of John Torode – telegraph.co.uk