Strawberry Weekend

Hello reader!

It's strawberry season here in Myanmar right now, and it's so crazy trying to fit in a dozen recipes in one week. =)

Oh boy, I love strawberry season. This lil' cheese cake tart is my own creation from the kitchen.

It's light, fresh, and a perfect way to start tea time with some friends. So lets get jiggy.

The 3 components:

• Strawberry concentration 
• Pate Sucree 
• Fluffy Cream Cheese Filling

...and of course the strawberries to decorate.

Frist off, the strawberry concentration. You'll need:

• 1 1/2 cup of fresh strawberries (if you have frozen ones, see the note below)
• 1/4 and a tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2 + 1/4 cup (maybe more) of water
• a twist of lime/lemon
• a pinch of salt

First wash the strawberries if you haven't yet, then halve them. In a medium sized sauce pan put in the strawberries, sprinkle the salt and sugar and twist the lime over the strawberries. This helps the strawberries to bleed some more juice. (It doesn't matter if it's frozen, its even better cause when it melts the juice just falls out, so let it thaw while you are cooking it.) Then after a few minutes, add the water, enough to cover the strawberries. Place the sauce pan over the burner. And leave it there until it thickens. You might want to stir it once in a while, but no too often because stirring creates a foam, and we don't want that cause we want a clear sauce. When it thickens, most of the water will be evaporated, and it will look a bit like watery jam. But thats what we want!
Take that, and put it through a sieve and TADA! You have a strawberry sauce, but whatever you do. Don't use the scrapings on the bottom of the sieve, this will make that beautiful clear sauce cloudy. It's what left of the seeds and whatnot. Discard of the pulp and seeds in the sieve. And put the sauce in the fridge for later.

The Fluffy Cream Cheese Filling:

• 250 grams of Cream Cheese
• 250 grams of Whipping Cream
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

Place whipping cream in a mixer bowl with whisk attachment, and whip until soft peaks, then add sugar, and whip until stiff peaks or until the sugar is dissolved. If you have another mixer or a hand mixer it would be more convenient. If not just switch out the whipping cream into another bowl, no worries. Place the cream cheese in the mixer bowl with the creamer attachment (not with the whisk attachment, the cream cheese would murder it)  and whip until it's fluffy and light. Then fold in the whipped cream, a third at a time, until combined add vanilla. Then again with the whisk attachment, whip the combo until the lumps of cream cheese are smooth with the whipped cream. Cover with plastic wrap and leave this in the fridge until need.

cooled and ready for decoration!

For the pate sucree you could use any recipe. But I use my own (which I will post next time). Just roll out the dough, and fit it in to little tart tins, and bake as instructed until golden brown.
Cool off on racks. This is essential, because the filling will split if the crust are too hot.
Fill each tart shell with a table spoon or 2 table spoons of filling, smooth it out. Then decorate with strawberries, and glaze the sauce over them.

And there you have a beautiful Strawberry Cheese Tartlet.