Strawberry cream cheese puff pastry tart
A flaky golden puff pastry frame filled with sweet cream cheese and fresh strawberries, the dessert that looks fancy and asks almost nothing of you.
- 95 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 6
- About $1.51 a serving
- 350 calories
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Most of the time here is hands-off, so you can sit down while it cooks.
Ingredients
For 6 servings.
- 1 puff pastry sheet, sheet
- 1 package cream cheese, 8 oz block
- 1 lb strawberries
- ⅓ cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp jam, warmed, for glazing (optional)
From your pantry
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Each serving has about 350 calories, 6 g protein, 30 g carbs and 24 g fat, and costs about $1.51 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the puff pastry on the counter for about 40 minutes, until it unfolds without cracking, and set the cream cheese out to .
Thaw. Thawing means letting frozen food soften back to fridge-cold, safest in the fridge overnight or in a sealed bag in cold water. Never thaw meat, poultry or fish on the counter.
How you’ll know: It bends and gives when you press it, with no hard, icy center left.
Softened. For vegetables it means cooked until they bend and lose their crunch; for butter, left out until it dents easily. Soft onions taste sweet, and soft butter mixes in smoothly.
How you’ll know: Onions squash easily against the pan with your spoon, and butter dents under a finger without looking greasy.
Timer: 40 min
the oven to 400°F and with .
Preheat. Preheating means turning the oven on before you start, so it’s fully hot when the food goes in. Food that starts in a cold oven cooks unevenly and doesn’t brown the same.
How you’ll know: The oven beeps or its light clicks off, usually 10 to 15 minutes after you turn it on.
Line a pan. Lining a pan means covering the bottom, and often the sides, with parchment paper or foil before the food goes in. Leave the paper hanging over two sides, and you can lift bars or brownies out in one piece to cut them neatly.
How you’ll know: The paper lies flat against the bottom, with flaps sticking up on two sides like handles.
Sheet pan. A sheet pan is a flat metal baking tray with a low rim all the way around. The rim catches juices, and the wide surface lets food spread out and brown.
How you’ll know: Everything fits in one layer with a little space between the pieces.
Parchment paper. Parchment paper is a nonstick, oven-safe paper for lining pans. Food lifts right off and cleanup is easy, but don’t swap in wax paper or put parchment under the broiler.
How you’ll know: It lies flat in the pan, and the food slides off when you lift it.
Unfold the pastry onto the sheet and a border 1 inch in from the edges, cutting only partway through.
Score. Scoring means cutting shallow lines into the top of dough without cutting all the way through. On puff pastry, a scored border puffs up into a frame while the middle stays flatter.
How you’ll know: The cut goes about halfway into the pastry, and the sheet is still in one piece when you lift it.
Dolly’s tip: Don’t cut all the way through. The scored border is what puffs up into a frame.Prick the middle all over with a fork and bake 15 to 18 minutes, until puffed and .
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Timer: 15 min
Press the puffed middle down gently with the back of a spoon and let the pastry cool completely, about 20 minutes.
Timer: 20 min
While it cools, the strawberries and cut them in half, or into thick if they’re big.
Hull. Hulling means cutting the green leafy top, and the pale core just under it, out of a strawberry. Slide the tip of a small knife around the stem at an angle and lift it out like a little cone.
How you’ll know: Each berry has a small hollow where the leaves were, with no green or hard white left.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Stir the soft cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth, then spread it inside the border.
Arrange the strawberries on top, brush them with the warm jam if you like, and cut into 6 pieces.
Food safety: Food with mayonnaise, dairy, eggs, cooked meat or cream, like dips, salads and cream desserts, can sit out for 2 hours at most, or 1 hour above 90°F. Keep cold food in the fridge or on ice until serving, and hot food at 140°F or hotter.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop picks a dessert for treat night, puts what you need on the week’s grocery list, and walks you through each step.
