Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians and a Happy early 4th of July to those south of the border! Hope both days are filled with happiness and celebration ... and dessert!
My girls and I went strawberry picking a few days ago and now we have baskets and baskets of red to the core strawberries that are just begging to be eaten. While eating them straight up is our favorite way to go I decided to include them in last nights post iftar dessert. I don't usually have dessert after dinner, but after a long day of fasting a little sugar seems needed!
The Graham Cracker crust has a lovely crunch that contrasts with the creamy filling and the juicy slightly tart strawberries provide the perfect contrast. Learn from my mistakes though and keep this baby in the fridge until you're ready to eat!
Looking for more strawberry dessert ideas? How about this cake or this tart with one of my favorite crusts of all time!
Strawberry and Cream Cheese Tart with a Graham Cracker Crust
Graham Cracker Crust
1 ½ + 1 tbsp cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sugar
pinch salt
Cream Cheese Filling
6 oz cream cheese (at room temp)
½ a cup whipping cream
½ cup fine sugar
1 tsp gelatin dissolved in 2 tsp hot water (optional, but recommended)
Zest of half a lemon or ½ tsp vanilla extract
Topping
1 ½ cups or more of strawberries
Crust: Preheat the oven to 350. Butter your tart pan or pie plate. I like tart pans with removable bottoms for this. Melt the butter. In a seperate bowl stir together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt. Add the melted butter and put aside a tablespoons worth of crumbs for patching. Press evenly and firmly into your pie plate/ tart pan.
If you are using a tart pan then I suggest building the sides first and then the middle. The middle is far easier to patch. When you're done look for little holes and fill them with the reserved tablespoon. Bake for 12-14 minutes till the crust takes on a darker hue. Your kitchen will smell amazing.
FIlling: While the crust is cooling whip the cream cheese till smooth then add your whipping cream, keep whipping till it starts to become fluffy, add your sugar and zest/extract and whip for another 2 minutes.
Spread evenly across your cooled tart base. This is a very 'creamy' mixture which is why I recommend dissolved gelatin but if you don't have it handy then make sure to keep it cold till serving.
Topping: Wash and halve your strawberries and make your design of choice. If you choose to make rings in the centre then use a bowl, invert it and press the rim gently onto the surface of the tart to make an indentation you can follow to ensure you get a neat circle.
Serve cold and watch it disappear 🙂
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! By the way, totally loving the inverted bowl idea! Very food-bloggery 😉
Looks delicious Sarah! Love cream cheese and strawberries! Perfect for the summer! 🙂
Easy and refreshing in this hot Ramadan days. Loved your recipe.
Oh wow... this looks/sounds so good. I'm a sucker for anything with cream cheese (or any cheese!) in it 🙂
Looks soooooo yummy. I will certainly make it soon. Thanks for sharing these treasures with us.
Begum Mir. You are a blessing for us and an angel in disguise. Thanks for sharing all these recipes. It's like the door to heaven's rasoi goes through this blog. We all love you and your cooking of course passionately. Love, your chote mamoo
By the way Sarah, where is your recipe for masaley walay andey?
Yum! This looks super duper delicious! Anything with graham cracker crust and sweetened cream cheese filling and I'm all over it.
Easy and delicious! Pinned!!!
I'm definitely going to try this on the weekend! Love it!
I hope you do! Keep me posted 🙂
I never told you.. I made this last summer haha..it turned out really good! I uh.. dont quite have the strawberry arrangement skills (read: patience) so it wasnt quite As pretty as yours but it tasted great 🙂 the hubs ate it pretty much all by himself as I was on a gestational diabetes enforced diet at the time. Wondering what to do with my summer berries this year brought me back to this post 🙂
that's awesome! also gestational diabetes sounds rough 🙁 i can't imagine except given that i have a history of diabetes in my family i should probably make less desserts myself 😉 I have a hand pie recipe coming up if you want something new to try, otherwise there's a strawberry tart that my 5 year old did for her teachers and its so yum!
I made this again today, for the in-laws. It was my once-per-visit cooking day haha. Big hit 🙂 everybody wants the recipe lol. Thought you'd be pleased to know..
that's marvellous to hear! I am really envying everyone their Karachi winters - hope the party for your lo went well!
It was a crazy, chaotic, running-around one month but hey, we survived - Karachi hasnt gotten the better of us yet 🙂 the party was great - we got a 30 pounder plus 200 cupcakes done from Riding Hood Bakery, it was pretty good stuff. Hope you've been having fun in TO!
that place has yummy stuff and they're sehr location is all of 2 minutes from my place in karachi!