Cheesecake Tart with Blueberries

Necessity is the mother of invention – this saying yet again proved itself, when it came to this recipe. One day I had some quark (cottage cheese) and some blueberries left and I was thinking how I could use them. The easiest solution – cheesecake - wouldn’t have worked as I didn’t have enough of the cheese so a tart seemed to be a better answer. Sadly, the outcome wasn’t as good as I expected because I found the filling of the tart too grainy.

But a few days later I wanted to give this cake concept another chance and used cream cheese instead of the quark. This time the result was heavenly: a scrumptious tart with melt-in-your-mouth filling that tasted a bit like New York cheesecake but with a bonus – juicy blueberries bursting in your mouth with every bite of this cake.

INGREDIENTS:

Base:

190g plain flour,

130g butter of room temperature (plus a bit extra for greasing),

35ml milk of room temperature,

1 tbsp caster sugar,

1 egg yolk,

pinch of salt,

Filling:

600g cream cheese, *

150ml of double cream,*

3 eggs,*

120g caster sugar,

1 tsp vanilla extract,

100g blueberries.

METHOD:

1. Using a food processor or manually combine quickly all the cake ingredients, form a flattened ball, cover it in cling film and put to a fridge for at least 2 hours.
2. Butter well a bottom and a side of a 26cm-diameter loose-bottom tart tin.
3. Preheat an oven to 220 Celsius degrees (200 for fan ovens).
4. Roll the pastry thinly (best done between 2 sheets of baking paper) and transfer it into the tin.
5. Pierce the pastry with a fork a few times and line it with baking paper, put baking beans on top.
6. Transfer the tin to the hot oven and immediately decrease the temperature to 190 Celsius degrees (170 for fan ovens); bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and bake for 5 minutes more.
7. Mix together the cream cheese, cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until combined and smooth.
8. Pour it over the baked base and sprinkle the blueberries on top.
9. Decrease the oven temperature to 150 Celsius degrees (no fan), put the tart to the oven and bake for 40 min.
10. After that time turn off the oven but keep the cake in for 2 hours; afterwards transfer to a fridge.
11. Take it out from the fridge 30 minutes before serving.

* Cream cheese, cream and eggs should be at room temperature.