Tag: fruit

Heart “Cake” Tart to Say THANKS!

Wow. What a wild ride my first three weeks have been on this blog and on my instagram. On Friday I had around 300 followers and today I am at over 600. I am so thankful and excited to have so many following along on my reading and baking journey! The “bookstagram” community is one that I knew very little about before this year and now I feel so welcomed into a dope and supportive group of wonderful humans.

I started this page to combine two major passions of mine. I’m a full time high school English teacher and am currently attending graduate school for my (second) master’s degree in Educational Leadership. So, I never thought I’d have the time to truly dedicate to a blog and instagram page like this to truly be “proud” of it – or whatever other superficial pressure I decided to put on myself. With the quarantine in New York State and my busy city coming to a stand still I decided to say, “What the heck?!” and went for it. When things get hectic now, or when I feel down, I am finding the happiness here and in really honoring the things that make me happy. It’s been a pretty powerful experience so far.

SO, to express my gratitude I need to do it in the only way I know how – baking you all something!! (I know I know that I’m technically going to be the one eating it but it’s for YOU, I assure you). here is an easy cake to say thank you!!! The base is essentially a big sugar cookie that you can cut into any shape, letter, or number that you’d like to – the key is to just have it open in the middle so you can admire the layers. The frosting is a very subtly sweet mascarpone frosting that is surprisingly sturdy enough to hold it all up!

Heart Shaped Tart Cake

Cookie Base Recipe

  • 4 sticks (two cups) of Salted Butter, softened
  • 2 cups of granulated sugar
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract
  • 4 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 6 cups of flour

Cookies How-To:

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. (Again, I forgot to do this. I don’t think I’ll ever remember!)
  2. Cream together your butter and sugar until completely integrated and fluffy, about 3 minutes at medium speed. ***Note – like I’ve mentioned before butter is a drama queen that demands to be respected. Softened butter should indent a bit when you touch it but shouldn’t be melted or liquidy. I just incorporate this step into my routine in the morning – put on the tea kettle, take out the butter from the fridge, do whatever else and then wait an hour or so until it’s ready for me.
  3. Scrape down your bowl and add your vanilla and your eggs, mix for about 30 seconds until combined.
  4. In a separate bowl measure out your six cups of flour, then add your baking soda and whisk to integrate.
  5. Mix in the flour into the butter mixture pulsating your mixer to juuust combine it to avoid over mixing. If you pour in all your flour at once you’ll have a mess on your hands, so do it in batches! 😉 Mix until you see the dough starts to come together. It should feel buttery and should stick together. If it’s a sandy texture continue to mix it a bit.
  6. Take your dough and separate it into double the amount of characters you want to create! For example, I did 3 hearts, so I separated my dough into SIX portions.
  7. Roll out each portion with your rolling pin on parchment paper, put whatever stencil your using over it and cut out your shape! I found my image on the internet doing a quick google search for printable stencils – a teacher’s secret trick for pretty bulletin boards :D.
  8. Use the parchment paper to help you transfer the cookie to a cookie sheet and back for 10-14 minutes (this will depend on how thick you rolled out your cookies). The edges should be golden brown.

Mascarpone Whipped Frosting

  • 16 ounces of Mascarpone Cheese
  • 2 cups of heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup to 1 cup of powdered sugar (I used 1/2 a cup but this depends on how sweet you like your frosting!)
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Frosting How-To

  1. Through it all in the bowl of stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk until it firms up and holds its peaks! This took about 2 minutes for me on high.
  2. Put into a piping bag and that’s it!

Assemble:

  1. Wait for your cookies to completely cool – this will happen quick!
  2. Take your base layer and pipe small swirls of your frosting onto the cookie.
  3. Top this with your second cookie and pipe on top again.
  4. Top with any fruits or edible flowers you wish! I used blackberries, strawberries, grapes. I recommend mint leaves as well!