Pablo Cheese Tart

Mai

Recipe for Pablo's cheese tart Flaky shortcrust base, creamy filling and beautiful glossy apricot glaze, absolutely dreamy

'Pâte brisée' shortcrust pastry makes 2 x 6" tarts (Alternatively you can just use store bought pastry)
250 g bread flour
125 g butter
1 tsp salt ~3g
1 egg yolk
50 ml water
Filling: for 1 x 6" tart
150 g cream cheese
15 g sugar
75 g mascarpone cheese
25 ml milk
7 g corn starch

Add butter + salt into the flour and rub everything together until you get a coarse breadcrumb-like texture (you can either do this with a stand mixer or by hand)
Add the egg yolk and water and gradually combine it with the rest of the dough until it starts to come together, and shape it into a smooth dough ball
Transfer the dough onto a work surface, using the palms of your hands gently press down the dough this will help flatten the butter and gives the dough a more flaky finish.
Gather your dough back into a ball, wrap it with cling film and flatten it into a disk. Proceed by refrigerating it for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180*C at this point
Flour your work surface, start rolling out your dough until you get a large surface of about 2 to 3 mm of thickness
Using the pan as a reference, cut a large dough disk with a radius of about 4-5 cm wider than the pan itself, this will form the walls of the tart
Using the rolling pin, transfer the dough on top of the pan
Pleat the sides of the dough disk and let it gently slide into the pan.
Dock the dough by poking some holes in the base using a fork. Doing this will prevent the crust from puffing up during the process.
Line the dough pan with some baking paper, you can use aluminum foil for this process as well.
Fill the pan with some weights to stop the crust from bubbling up and shrinking during blind baking. I didn’t have any so I used some uncooked rice grains instead.
Bake the crust for 15 minutes at 180 degrees C
After the 15 minutes, take the crust out of the oven and remove the weights.
Prepare some egg wash by mixing together an egg yolk and a tablespoon of milk. Apply the egg wash onto the crust
Return the crust to the oven to bake for a further 5 to 10 minutes until it gets a nice golden colour

Mix cream cheese, mascarpone, sugar, milk and corn starch until it’s smooth and there are no more lumps. You should end up with a smooth and glossy mixture
If you want your filling to be even more gooey and liquid, add a bit more milk than I did at this point
Fill the crust with you cream cheese filling
Use any remaining egg wash on the crust to make sure that you get a nice shine in the end.
For 'Medium' finish, bake the tart for 15 minutes at 180 degrees C. However if you like the 'Rare' consistency, consider taking the cheese tart out about 5 minutes earlier. (I have some examples of this gooey lava – like consistency on my Instagram page if you’d like to have a look)

In a pan, add some apricot jam and some water then bring it to a boil whilst continually mixing. Let the mixture reduce until you get a smooth and jelly-like mixture.
Once the glaze is ready, I like to pass it through a strainer to make sure that it comes out smooth without any clumps.
Glaze the surface of the tart and plate everything up!

If you've made this recipe, remember to tag @mai.ng on Instagram www.maicookbook.com