Blueberry Cheese Tart

Buttery and crumbly shortbread crust with light cream cheese filling, blueberry jam and fresh blueberries

One of my favourite desserts is blueberry cheese tart. I remember the first blueberry cheese tart I had was from Berry’s bakery which was oh-so-heavenly. Last I checked, their blueberry cheese tart was still as good and it only costs RM2.90 each (but I don’t know whether there’s a price increase after GST). Talking about GST just makes me sad, let's move on to happier things like creamy and buttery blueberry cheese tart.


I like blueberry cheese tart with a crumbly and buttery crust and creamy cheese filling with lots of blueberry jam. It's called blueberry cheese tart for a reason, so don't stinge on the jam.


The crust recipe is by Dorie Greenspan which I got from Fine Cooking website. This is the best crust texture for blueberry cheese tart. Use whatever recipe you want for the filling but I strongly recommend using this shortbread recipe for the crust.


I'm using a light recipe for the filling. Feel free to use full cream cheese filling for more solid and compact texture.

Ingredients
For shortbread crust:-
150g cold butter
65g icing sugar
1 large egg yolk
190g AP flour
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For filling:-
100g cream cheese
60g caster sugar
120ml whipping cream
1 egg
blueberry jam 


Method

For shortbread crust:-
Sift flour and icing sugar separately and set aside.

Stir butter and sifted sugar in a mixing bowl on low speed until just combined. Add in egg yolk and continue mixing on low speed then add in vanilla extract.

Add in flour and stir until mixture is dry and crumbly - the size of oatmeal flakes or size of peas. Use a spatula to stir the mixture just to incorporate any dry ingredients that are not mixed properly.

Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill for an hour.

Allow dough to soften a bit before pressing into tart moulds. Weigh about 30g dough for each mould and press dough into mould with light pressure. You don't want to overwork the dough. Pierce dough with fork.

Bake in preheated oven at 175°c for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Remove tart shells from oven and allow it to completely cool before filling them.

For filling:-
Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth and well-combined. Add in egg followed by whipping cream and continue whisking.

Fill each shell with blueberry jam and cover with cream cheese filling. Make swirls on filling with blueberry jam using thin end of chopstick. Bake for 10 minutes or until cream cheese becomes solid.

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**Tips:-

• Use very cold butter
• Don't over knead dough as this would produce gluten which gives you elasticity. Ok for bread but absolute no no for pastry
• Use a mix of cake flour in AP flour for softer texture tarts
• Use egg yolks
• It is very important to wrap and refrigerate pastry before use 

The thickness of the pastry was just nice. Every bite was filled with creamy cheese and crumbly buttery pastry. My mum agreed that the pastry was very good. The boys loved it and had it for breakfast for a few days straight.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

Happy baking! xx