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Whether it is cream cakes or breakfast brioche , every moment is a good moment for enjoying a home made sweet.
The important thing is that you make it with fresh, high quality ingredients.
Today we want to tease your imagination with a classic among Italian desserts: the tart.
A thin layer of shortcrust pastry, which can be white, with chocolate, or coffee flavored, and a filling of jam, custard cream or ricotta: which do you prefer?
Here are some ideas for preparing the perfect tasty and crumbly coffee tart.
The tricks for the perfect tart
The secret for preparing the perfect tart lies in creating the best shortcrust pastry.
Making it at home is not difficult, but the important thing is to follow these handy hints:
● cold butter: when you prepare the shortcrust pastry, arrange the flour in a fountain shape and place the other ingredients in the middle, including the butter.
To prevent the dough from crumbling too much, it is fundamental that the butter is used cold.
In fact, using it at room temperature would actually make it harder to make the pastry and would create some difficulties in rolling it out;
● rest in the fridge: once you have obtained your smooth, even mixture, form it into a roll, wrap it in clear plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge for at least half an hour.
This step is essential for avoiding difficulties in rolling out the pastry later.If, instead, you have prepared the pastry the day before, keep it at room temperature for at least 10 minutes, just enough to let it soften.
To check if the pastry is ready to be rolled out, stick your finger into the roll of dough: if it reaches the center relatively easily, it’s ready.
If, on the other hand, you cannot do this easily, it means the dough needs to be left a little more time at room temperature before rolling out;
● in the baking tin: after resting, it’s time to roll out the pastry.
Flour the work surface, knead the dough a little with your hands for a couple of minutes and start rolling it out with a rolling pin.
It is important to specify that you don’t need to use baking paper or grease the baking tin because the pastry already contains butter.
This allows the pastry not to stick to the tin during baking;
●prick the shortcrust pastry base: in order to prevent the pastry rising up during cooking, prick holes in the pastry base with a fork.
Careful not to make the holes too big though, if you do, the filling could leak through the base and cause uneven cooking.
wo delicious recipes for coffee tart
After giving you some handy hints and tips for making shortcrust pastry at home, let’s get down to creating the coffee tart recipe.
Tart with coffee cream
A soft shortcrust pastry base and a filling of coffee cream: can you imagine a better way to have breakfast?
Ingredients for 8 people
For the shortcrust pastry
● 12.35 oz of flour
● 5.29 oz of butter
● 3 eggs
● 5.29 oz of sugar
● 1 pinch of bicarbonate of soda
For the coffee cream/strong>
● 3 egg yolks
● 3 dessert spoons of sugar
● 1.06 oz of cake flour
● 0.35 oz of corn starch
● 1 shot of Filicori Zecchini Espresso
● 16.91 fl oz of milk
Method
1. First of all, take care of the shortcrust pastry: on a work surface arrange the flour into a fountain and pour the sugar, eggs, pinch of bicarbonate of soda and then the cold butter pieces into the center.
Start blending in the eggs using a fork and when they have been completely incorporated, proceed to work the dough with your hands, squashing the pieces of butter with your fingertips.
Try to work quickly in this phase so that the dough does not have time to warm up too much from the heat of your hands.
When it becomes a smooth even mix, cover it in clear plastic wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge.
2. In the meantime, prepare the coffee cream: into a large bowl, pour the egg yolks and sugar and start beating until you get a light frothy mixture.
Sieve the flour with the corn starch and add them to the eggs a little at a time.
Once you have mixed in all the flour, gradually pour in the milk at room temperature, continuing to stir all the time. Lastly, pour in the coffee and stir well.
Place on the heat and cook on a low heat until it comes to the boil, stirring continuously for at least another two minutes.
Then remove from the heat and leave your coffee cream to cool, placing clear plastic wrap on the surface so that it doesn’t form a skin.
3. Remove the shortcrust pastry from the fridge, flour a work surface, knead it with your hands for a couple of minutes then roll out with a rolling pin.
Arrange the pastry base in a 10.24 inch baking tin , removing any excess edges and gently prick the base with a fork.
Roll up the left over pastry, roll it out again and cut strips for decorating the top of the tart.
Fill the tart base with the coffee cream, leveling it off with the back of a spoon, then decorate with the pastry strips.
Pre-heat the oven to a temperature of 320°F and place the tart in the oven, preferably in static mode, for at least 35 minutes.
Once cooking is complete, remove from the oven and leave to cool before serving.
Tart with coffee pastry and ricotta and chocolate filling.
In this case the shortcrust pastry is flavored with coffee and filled with ricotta and chocolate drops. Here’s how to make it.
Ingredients for 8 people
For the coffee-flavored pastry
● 10.58 oz of cake flour
● 5.29 oz of butter
● 5.29 oz of powdered sugar
● 2 eggs
● 0.53 oz of caffè Filicori Zecchini ground coffee
For the filling
● 8.82 oz of ricotta cheese
● 3.53 oz of sugar
● 2.82 oz of chocolate drops
Method
1. Firstly, prepare the coffee-flavored pastry: onto the work surface, sieve the flour with the sugar and ground coffee.
Create a hole in the middle and pour in the eggs and cold butter cut into small pieces.
First blend in the eggs and then add in the butter using your finger tips to create a smooth and even dough.
Wrap it in clear plastic wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge.
2. In a large bowl put the ricotta, mash it with a fork and add the sugar and chocolate drops and mix well.
Once the pastry has finished resting, remove it from the fridge, roll it out onto a floured work surface and place it into a 10.24 inch baking tin.
Prick holes in the pastry base using a fork, pour in the ricotta and level off using the back of a spoon.
With the left over pastry create some strips to decorate the top of the tart.
3. Pre-heat the oven to a temperature of 320°F in static mode and bake for at least 35 minutes or until the surface is golden brown.
Then, remove from the oven and leave to cool before serving.
What do you think of our coffee tart recipes?
If you decide to try them out, tell us all about it in the comments.