Fresh Strawberry Tarts
These pretty as a picture Fresh Strawberry Tarts are the perfect dessert to showcase the seasonโs ripest, most flavorful berries.
With the combination of sweet luscious berries, sweet, crisp crusts, and a dreamy cheesecake filling, this Fruit Tart Recipe will rock your world, or at least your taste buds!
Why These Tarts Work
After such a dreadful winter, it was a joy to find fragrant strawberries at the market. Surely a sign of spring! I snatched up a couple of boxes of ruby red berries as the wheels started turning in my sugar-deprived brain. I knew dessert was in order, and fresh strawberry tartlets came to mind.
- The buttery pastry shells can be made ahead of time.
- A simple filling of cream cheese and whipped cream is easy and delicious.
- If you wait until strawberries are ripe and fragrant, youโll have a spectacular dessert.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Fruit Tart?
A tart is a pastry crust with shallow sides, a filling, and no top crust, according to The Food Loverโs Companion. Therefore, a fruit tart is any tart that incorporates fruit into the filling or topping.
How to Bake a Fruit Tart?
Some fruit tarts are filled and then baked and others, like this one, is baked then filled. Baking the shell first is called blind baking and often needs the assistance of pie weights to prevent the bottom of the crust from puffing up. There are ceramic pie weights or substitutes like dried beans.
How to Glaze a Fruit Tart?
My favorite trick is to use some jelly or jam that will complement the color of the fruit. Red currant jelly isnโt overly sweet and works well for strawberries and raspberries. Use a small pastry brush to lightly paint the jelly over the fruit.
Melt the jelly gently in the microwave to liquefy it. Wait until it cools to room temperature so it doesnโt cook/discolor the berries. You may need to thin with some water and whisk until smooth.
How to Store a Fruit Tart?
If the filling is perishable, store the tarts in the refrigerator covered with plastic to keep the fruit fresher for a longer time The plastic will also minimize the tart absorbing any refrigerator odors. When sliced strawberries are used, theyโll start showing their age after a night in the refrigerator. Theyโre still safe to eat for 3-4 days.
How to Make These Strawberry Fruit Tarts
- Roll out the pastry crust, cut a few circles of dough, fit them in the tart pans, and prebaked them. The rest was a piece of cakeโฆor pie as the case may be. There will be enough filling for five tarts, so gather the scraps to make another tart shell if desired.
- Cream cheese, sugar, and a bit of lemon juice were beaten till smooth, then incorporated into freshly whipped cream.
- Berries can be arranged on top of each tart in any manner youโd like.I arranged sliced berries on two and halved berries on the rest.ย ย
- A simple glaze of melted red currant jelly provided an elegant sheen. Easy, peasy. PRO-Tip: The easiest glaze for strawberries is some melted red jelly. I prefer currant, but raspberry or strawberry work well, too. You donโt want jam as it has pieces of fruit and seeds.
As Bill finished up the last one, he gushed, โThese strawberry tartlets were really, really good. I could eat a hundred of them.โ
Tip for Decorating Fresh Fruit Tarts
I love to play around with different ways to top strawberry tarts, whether full size or minis. Look for the brightest, most vibrant berries for the best presentation.
- My favorite way to top these strawberry cream cheese tarts was to take 4 similar-sized strawberry slices from the middles of a few different berries and intertwine them together. Youโll need to remove any hull and make sure the stem end is split open so you can connect all four together. This is easier to do on the countertop instead of fiddling around with them on the tart filling.
- Once youโre happy with your arrangement, a simple glaze of melted jam or jelly gives the berries a boost of color and some nice sheen. Looking at the top photo will give you some visual clues in case my description is lacking!
- The jelly also adds some color if your berries are on the pale side.
- Even a half berry, cut side down, with a sprig of mint, looks beautiful.
- Brush (affiliate link) on some red jelly to give the berries a little sheen. I like to keep a jar of red currant jelly (affiliate link) in the fridge just for this purpose.
Tips for Making Strawberry Tarts
If youโve made tarts before, you may be familiar with terms and techniques like blind baking. But in case you arenโt, here are some tips for making these strawberry tartlets.
- First, you may need to buy some small tart pans (affiliate link) . I like the ones with removable bottoms, for easy removal and serving. Mine are 4 1/2-inch in diameter, but 4-inch would work, too.
- The crusts need to be baked alone since the filling is no-bake. Baking without a filling is called blind-baking.
- Once the tart shells are full of pastry, you line them with non-stick foil and weigh that down with dried beans or pie weights (affiliate link). This helps keep the bottom crust stay flat against the tart pan while it bakes.
- PRO-Tip: If you use dried beans as pie weights, they can be used over and over again. Just place them in a heavy-duty Ziploc bag or canning jar and save them for your next pie or tart.
- PRO-Tip: When making the crusts, make sure to keep all the ingredients cold, as that will make for the flakiest crust.
- The butter is for flavor and the shortening is for flakiness.
- Pull out the cream cheese for up to 2 hours before making the filling. It will mix best at room temperature.
- Chill the bowl youโll use to whip the cream as a cold bowl helps stabilize the cream.
- PRO-Tip: Use fresh lemon juice, never bottled. You can squeeze the whole lemon and keep the extra juice in your freezer for the next recipe!
More Fruit Tart Recipes Youโll Love:
- Creamy Lemon Tart
- Raspberry Almond Tartlets are tasty bite-sized tarts!
- Key Lime Tartlets
- Peach Tart Recipe
- More of the Best Berry Desserts
- More of the Best Dessert Recipes
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This recipe was first shared in March 2014. Photos and text were updated in 2021.
Fresh Strawberry Fruit Tarts
Sweet pastry crusts filled with a light cheesecake filling and topped with gorgeous ripe strawberries.
Ingredients
For crust:
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 tablespoons cold butter, diced
- 2 tablespoons cold shortening, diced
- 3-4 tablespoons of ice cold water
For filling:
- 2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- Fresh strawberries (12-16 depending on size)
- 2 tablespoons red currant jelly (or other red jelly)
Instructions
- Put flour, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor and pulse to mix.
- Add butter and shortening and pulse till the butter is the size of peas.
- Add water a little at a time and pulse till dough comes away from sides of bowl and forms a ball. You may not need all 4 tablespoons of water.
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- After dough has chilled, roll out on lightly floured surface, then cut big enough rounds to fit into four 4 eo 4½ diameter tart pans. Remove excess dough. Chill filled tart pans if dough has softened.
- Preheat oven to 375º.
- Line tart pans with non-stick foil and fill with beans or ceramic pie weights. Bake for about 10 minutes, then remove the foil, prick the bottoms of the tarts with a fork and bake for another 15 minutes or till tart shells are lightly browned. Cool.
- Make filling. With hand mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice till light and fluffy.
- In another bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks and combine with the cream cheese mixture.
- Spread into cooled tart shells. Top with sliced or halved strawberries. Gently warm jelly in the microwave. Brush jelly over berries, then chill tarts for 30-60 minutes before serving.
Notes
Total time is about 2 hours with cooling and chilling included.
This recipe is for 4 fruit tarts, but I usually have enough dough and filling to make 5.
The crusts can be made the day before. On the day you plan to serve, make the filling and fill the shells. Add the berries and glaze within a few hours of serving time.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
5Serving Size:
1 tartAmount Per Serving: Calories: 502Total Fat: 32gSaturated Fat: 19gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 78mgSodium: 217mgCarbohydrates: 51gFiber: 1gSugar: 25gProtein: 5g
Thatskinnychickcanbake.com occasionally offers nutritional information for recipes contained on this site. This information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. This information comes from online calculators. Although thatskinnychickcanbake.com attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased can change the nutritional information in any given recipe. Also, many recipes on thatskinnychickcanbake.com recommend toppings, which may or may not be listed as optional and nutritional information for these added toppings is not listed. Other factors may change the nutritional information such as when the salt amount is listed โto taste,โ it is not calculated into the recipe as the amount will vary. Also, different online calculators can provide different results. To obtain the most accurate representation of the nutritional information in any given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe. You are solely responsible for ensuring that any nutritional information obtained is accurate.
68 Comments on “Fresh Strawberry Tarts”
What beautiful tartlets! I say yes, please!
Strawberries really do mean Spring! These are the best little tarts I’ve seen. I’ll challenge Bill to see who can eat the most!
Lizzy,
These tartlets look gorgeous. I bet they are every bit as delicious as your hubby says. I’m always nervous when buying strawberries because sometimes they’re tart instead of sweet.
Annamaria
Pretty strawberry tartlets! Strawberries and the beginning of Spring..perfect way to celebrate!
You’ve inspired me Miss Lizzy ๐
Such gorgeous tartlets and I love the cream cheese filling!
June is strawberry season up here in PA, so I’ll have to keep these in mind when I go berry picking!
So fresh and perfect for spring (now if the weather would just hurry up and cooperate ; )
Liz, what a stunning recipe. May I ask, what are Dixie Crystals Sugar???
Lizzy, it’s a brand of sugar here in the states…mostly available in the south. The Dixie Crystals I referred to was granulated white sugar.
Two weeks ago I started buying berries each week. They certainly make me feel like it is more Spring. These are so pretty.
Liz these tarts are delicious works of art.
Quality control is my favorite part of the job! ๐
These tartlets sound and look so delicious! I love the intertwined strawberries on top – so elegant!
Gorgeous tarts! The strawberries in the stores now are tired and tasteless but I’ll remember this for next season. I love your idea of quality control.
Just seeing the Dixie Crystals packaging made me homesick a bit. ๐
These tarts look gorgeous Liz! The strawberries look so pretty and bright – I could eat a hundred of these too ๐ We are so glad to finally see fragrant strawberries popping up in the market too and getting excited for peak berry season ๐
hey Lizzy! how beautiful tartlets!!! amazing, and all these strawberries, sometimes still I found!
we are begining our autumn!! xxxx
These are so, so pretty Liz! I love the way you arranged the strawberries. It definitely looks like spring!
Liz, these are absolutely gorgeous! I wouldn’t have been able to resist biting into one before taking these photos!
Liz, you are a dessert ARTIST. You make the most beautiful sweets I have ever seen, seriously. I can’t wait to get my hands on some fresh strawberries this spring!
These heavenly little tarts look absolutely irresistible!
I am so glad I didn’t give up sweets for lent, these are perfect anytime but your so very talented on photography and presentations these are beautifully done! XO hope all is well and hubby is feeling great again!
I am not a huge dessert lover… but this is something that I can really LOVE!!