Cheese and Wine @ Mahir and Vera

April 25th, 2006  | Category: Baked Goods

Two very dear friends of mine celebrated their tenth year anniversary at Corsica. On their way back, they brought several delicious French cheeses and were quite generous to share them with friends.

Among many, my favorite cheese was Brocciu, a whey-based cheese produced from goat or ewe’s (female adult sheep) milk, which makes it perfect for the lactose-intolerant cheese lovers. Apparently, Brocciu is considered Corsica’s national food.

Cheese and Wine

Vera had also put together cherry tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese, lots of bread, grapes, olives, salad and pickles. This is definitely a night to remember.

I wanted to bake something that we could enjoy all together. I thought some sort of tart would go nicely with cheese and wine.

Having no time to experiment with something new, I resorted to an all-time-favorite: Chocolate Ganache Tart. This time, I have made a couple of adjustments to the original ingredients based on previous comments from friends who had tasted it. I eliminated salt completely, replaced ground almonds with the same amount of flour and added an extra tablespoon of sugar to the tart dough. It was much better this time.

After discovering that my large fluted tart pan was corroded (Note to lazy-ass self: Do not wash an aliminium tart pan in the diswasher or even if you do, do not just leave it there to rust), I had no choice but to use a smaller size. I didn’t have the time to calculate and adjust the ingredients for the smaller size, so I prepared according to original volume. I started thinking what I should do with the left over tart dough. Going through the refrigerator, I spotted mascarpone cheese. It was an easy call. I called my friend who was on his way over to my place and he managed to find the best strawberries in town. Below is the result, but I must say I was not happy with it. It was not a total disaster, but the filling was not what I expected. I will be posting the recipe once it is perfected.

Strawberry Tart

Strawberry Tart

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Comments

  1. Bobby nin annesi on April 26th, 2006

    My husband loves mascarpone cheese. I use it for tiramisu and in fact I started making a virgin version for my son because he too loves mascarpone. So I am just curious how did you use mascarpone in this tart? Did you just spread it? Please do tell. This would be a great alternative.

    I am also interested in using mascarpone in other dessert recipes because my guys like it so much. So if you have any any ideas-recipes I would love to hear.

    Thanks,

    Bobby nin annesi

  2. Cenk on April 27th, 2006

    I wish I had a better mascarpone spread recipe to share with you. As I said earlier in my post, I was not quite happy with the result.
    What I did was put the mascarpone cheese (appx. 1 cup) in the bowl of my standing mixer and started whisking after adding appx. 1/4 cup of heavy cream and 5 tablespoons of powdered sugar. The problem was I did not have the time to wait for the masarpone to reach room temperature. It was cold and the heavy cream was warm so they did not come together for a very long time. It took a good 20 minutes of whisking. The result was, in my opinion, too greasy. The kind that sticks to your palate. I am always on the look out for a nice fluffy spread and I will share it with you once I come across something worth mentioning.

  3. Andreutti, BasakD. on April 28th, 2006

    Hi,

    Have you any idea about where I can find that cheese called BROCCIU? My husband and I are dying for CHEESE…

    Funny cause in Paris, I did not seen even if I was trying all kind of goat cheeses (:P)… in Italy? Did not.

    Now I am in Germany.
    Any advice?
    Thanks,
    Good luck with the blog
    : )
    bests,
    Basak

  4. Cenk on April 28th, 2006

    Hi BaÅŸak,

    My friends bought it from Corsica. Any chance of visiting in the near future?

    If not, you can click (or copy and paste to browser address bar)on this link to find similar products online (Sorry, I couldn’t find Brocciu online):

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&tag=wwwcafefernan-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26index=gourmet-index%26keyword=french%20cheese

    Best,
    Cenk

  5. Glutton Cat on April 29th, 2006

    I really like the picture of cherry tomatoes stuffed with cheese. It must be really delicious. I will try it soon.

  6. Hale on November 5th, 2006

    Hi Cank,

    I really like how you decorated your Tart and cream looks very rich..

    Keep in Touch..

    Hale

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