Cheese tart with honey baked peaches

Difficulty 1/5

This tart is really nice and simple. The crust is special because it has almond chunks, which work so so good with the cheese and fruits. The peaches are baked with honey and lemon so this way they don’t oxidize and are nice and shiny for days. Of course you can replace them with any fruits you like, or add chunks of another nut, or several types of nuts, or none at all! The cheese we use here is cream cheese, but it could also be mascarpone or cottage 🙂

Portions: 4 18cm tarts

Ingredients:
For the crust:
– 50g almonds
– 200g flour + more for dusting
– 150g butter, at room temperature
– 50g sugar
– 1 tsp salt
– 1 tsp vanilla essence
– 1 egg

For the cheese filling:
– 220 cream cheese, at room temperatura
– 55g icing sugar
– 80g whipping cream
– Juice from 1/2 lime

For the toppings:
– 2 peaches
– 35g honey
– Juice from 1/2 lime
– 150g blueberries

Procedure:
1. Cut thin slices of the peaches and put them on baking paper. Drizzle the honey mixed with the lime juice on top. These go in the oven at 200C for 10min, then turn them around and another 10min in the oven, until soft and shiny. Let them cool down.

2. For the dough, first toast the almonds either on the stove, shaking constantly or, ideally, in the oven at 140C until nice and golden. Then chop them up in nice small chunks. If they are too big, your dough will be thicker on the tarts. Let them cool down completely.

3. Use a whisk to mix the room temperature butter with the sugar until no lumps remain.

4. Then add the eggs, salt, vanilla essence and mix with the whisk.

5. Finally add the almonds and flour and mix using a spatula until very even. Cling film the mix and rest in the fridge for 30min.

6. Roll out the mix to about 3mm thick and cut in 4 (in my case) for each small tart. Use lots of flour and make sure it’s not sticking every roll because it’s very buttery and delicate. Lift them carefully and put on top of the tarts, lifting the sides and pushing down into the corners so they are nicely angled once cooked.

7. Blind bake at 170C for 15min by putting cling film on top of the dough, making sure it goes into the corners as well, and adding baking beans on top. I used these beans this time, but before I’ve used all sorts of pulses. What I do is I keep these in a separate container to know that these are for blind baking only. Then arrange the excess cling film nicely on top and they go in the oven. I must add that I did some cookies with the extra dough because it’s too good to be wasted! They don’t blind bake, they need only about 15min to be nice and ready.

8. Once the time has gone by and the edges are very dry, take out the clings film with the beans and bake still at 170 for 10-15min or until nicely golden. Let them cool completely.

9. Mix the cream cheese and sugar until there are no lumps. Then add the cream and lemon juice and mix.

10. Finally, fill them with the cheese mix and arrange the peaches and fresh blueberries on top. Aren’t they beautiful? I hope you like them 🙂