Sunday, July 25, 2010

Overdue recipe alert!




I've been meaning to post this for weeks but as the previous post alludes to I've had technical difficulties the have frustrated me to the point of just needing a damned break from blogging.
For my parents' farewell picnic (they moved to NH) I needed a dessert. I had just finished making marscapone from local milk and needed to use it before it soured. Thus I created one of the best desserts I've ever eaten!



It may not look like much but it was fantastic!
Marscapone Cherry Tortes:
Ingredients
1c. Marscapone cheese
9-10 Fresh black cherries, halved and pitted
Pie crust dough, pre-made and rolled to fit a standard pie tin.
Brown sugar

First you cut your pie crust into 6 even wedges. They'll be very roughly triangular.
Grease a set of six muffin tins. I always use butter- it cooks into the crust better than the more synthetic stuff.
Next push each sixth of pie crust into the muffin tins, keeping the three corners accessible.
Dollop 1-2 tablespoons of marscapone into the bottom of each cup. In hindsight I would also press a bit of brown sugar into the crust before this to create a butter-tart-type carmelization where the marcapone touches the crust.
Place 3-4 cherry halves, cut side up, on the surface of the marscapone and dust with brown sugar. If you prefer sweeter tarts you can toss them in sugar first.
Fold the three corners of the crust up over the cherries and bake according to crust directions Another hindsight: painting the crust with milk after closing the tart would have given me browner, prettier tops to them.
You can do this with ANY fruit! Raspberries and chocolate? Strawberries with honey? Pears with nutmeg, cinnamon and sugar? Be creative! I plan to do some of these for my wedding. They're SO easy, especially if you aren't making your own marscapone first. They're a quick way to make an elegant dessert in a time/money crunch.
I'm going to try the with chocolate yogurt-cheese substituted for marscapone next!
Enjoy!

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