Strawberry Puff Pastry Tart

Make the most of plump, ripe strawberries with this showstopping strawberry puff pastry tart. Imagine spoiling mum on Mothers Day with this beauty.

• It looks stunning! Great for spoiling friends and family.
• It’s unbelievably easy to make.
• Just 8 really simple ingredients.
• A crisp, flaky crust holding soft creamy filling and strawberries.
• Perfect for gatherings and celebrations

This is the strawberries and cream of your dreams. Imagine super crispy, flaky puff pastry squares, topped with both fresh and macerated strawberries and a creamy cheesecake-like filling. It’s got it all – texture, flavour, colour and it’s truly a crowd pleaser.

This puff pastry tart comes hot on the heels of my peach puff pastry tarts and you can turn this into strawberry tartlets in a similar fashion too. And if you love this, you’ll love my strawberry cream cheese Danishes too.

Ingredients you’ll need

The list of ingredients for this fresh strawberry tart are short and are just a beautiful flavour combination. It’s all summery and sweet and the strawberries are the jewel on the crown. You can use other fruits too so you can really customise this to your own perfect, elegant dessert.

Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.

• Strawberries: Plump, ripe, fresh strawberries are what you need here and lots since we’re making a real show of them. You can actually swap the berries for other fruits too – see my variations section for more ideas.
• Puff pastry:  I use store-bought puff pastry to keep this tart super simple. I use an all butter puff pastry by careme which is a rectangular sheet about 375g/13.2oz. You can reduce the recipe to make it on a regular pre-rolled square sheet or make extra filling and use two sheets. You can also use a fork to crimp together a square sheet and half of another square sheet to get your rectangle.
• Sugar: Just white sugar here. There’s a little bit for macerating the strawberries and a little in the cream cheese filling.
• Cream cheese: A full fat cream cheese is best here, not just for flavour, but also it is firmer and holds it’s shape better.
• Cream: Where I am, it’s call thickened cream but you can use heavy cream, heavy whipping cream and even whipping cream. You’re looking for a cream that is at least 35% milk fat so that you can whip it.
• Lemon: A little lemon juice is added to the macerated strawberries and some lemon zest mixed into the cream cheese filling. Just a little adds so much brightness and goes lovely with strawberries.
• Vanilla: You can’t have strawberries and cream without some vanilla. Please use a pure vanilla extract as opposed to vanilla essence that is a synthetic flavouring.

How to make puff pastry strawberry tart (step-by-step)

This strawberry puff pastry tart is incredibly easy to make. You’ll bake pastry on a parchment-lined baking sheet until it’s golden and puffed. The filling needs no cooking whatsoever – it’s just a simple mix and assemble from there on.

Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.

Prepare the puff pastry:

1. Make a border: Use a ruler and sharp knife just to score a line 1 inch in from all sides to create a 1 inch border. Don’t cut through the pastry, just score it.
2. Dock the pastry: Docking pastry means to prick it all over with a fork to create air holes or vents. This helps to stop pastry from rising too much. For this puff pastry base we want the centre area to stay lower than the border so score just that central section. On baking, the border will puff up while the centre area bakes and only rises slightly.
3. Egg wash and bake: Brush an egg wash (I use 1 egg yolk and a dash of cream or milk) all over the border. There’s no need to egg wash the centre. Bake in a fairly hot oven for around 20 minutes until golden brown around the edges.

To make the creamy strawberry filling:

1. Start with the macerated strawberries: Simply mix together chopped strawberries with sugar and lemon juice and set them aside. The sugar will encourage the strawberries to release liquid which in turns mixes with and dissolves that sugar to become a gorgeous strawberry syrup.
2. The cheesecake filling: This filling is like a very basic no-bake cheesecake mixture. Beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla; fold in whipped cream; then carefully mix through the lemon zest. Done!

To assemble the tart:

1. The cream cheese mixture: Carefully spread the cream cheese filling across the middle section of the tart, inside the border.
2. Add strawberries: Scatter over some fresh strawberries and then the macerated strawberries holding back most of the syrup.
3. Slice and serve: Slice into squares and serve with a small pot of the strawberry syrup to drizzle over at will.

Variations

• Other berries (like raspberries and blackberries) will work. Once macerated, these types can be mashed with a fork into a sauce or compote to dollop over the tart, then add fresh berries too. Blueberries will work too, without mashing, just macerate them whole.
• Stone fruits like peaches and plums work a treat too with this same sugar and lemon combo. Simply slice the fruit, discard the stones and macerate them in place of the strawberries in the recipe.
• Citrus fruit works too like oranges, blood oranges, tangerines, mandarins or grapefruit. They’re best with the skin surrounding the juicy pearls of fruit removed so segment them or slice off the peel first, then slice the fruit into rounds.
• Skip maceration: Macerating fruit is the process of mixing fruit with sugar and letting it sit until a syrup forms and the fruit softens. You don’t need to macerate the fruit for this puff pastry tart though.
• Tropical: Try mango and kiwi fruit just peeled and sliced for a gorgeous tropical tart maybe with some pomegranate arils (seeds) for a pop of colour.

You can do a mixture too. Make a stunning mixed berry or mixed fruit tart.

Yield and storage

This recipe serves 12 made with the rectangular pastry as used in this recipe.

This strawberry puff pastry tart is best served fresh and best assembled close to serving time – that doesn’t mean you can’t prep ahead though.

• Strawberries: The macerated strawberries can be prepped and stored in the fridge for 1-2 days prior to serving them on the tart.
• Cream cheese mixture: The cream cheese mixture will also be fine made and chilled in an airtight container or covered in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
• Puff pastry: The puff pastry can be baked up to 3 days in advance but do make sure it is stored in a large airtight container or wrapped 2-3 times in plastic wrap. Be gentle so as not to damage the delicate flaky pastry.

While not as good as fresh, the tart is still pretty good the next day, though it won’t really last longer than that as the strawberries start to change colour and dry out and the pastry will soften the longer it sits filled.

We eat this just held in our hand but you can serve it on a plate with a knife and fork too.

More recipes you’ll love

• Peach puff pastry tarts
• Strawberry cream cheese Danishes
• Strawberry custard tart
• Blueberry cheese tart
• Strawberry sponge cake