Such an easy tart...

After a pretty rotten day today, of endless meetings followed by confirmation that our rottweiler has torn a cruciate ligament which needs a $2000 operation to correct, I wanted cheesecake, but I was just too damn over everything to put in the effort needed for a cheesecake and wait for it to set. While Leela is on pain medication she is on a special home cooked dog food that won't upset her stomach, and after cooking a batch of ricey oaty dog gunk, I wasn't up for another major cooking exercise either.

So I made a super cheaty strawberry cheese cake tart! I love this recipe, it is so quick, and other than burning pastry, nothing can go wrong with it. This is based off a strawberry tart recipe I found in one of my mum's old cook books when I was a teenager.

If you want to make your own pastry, go right ahead and knock yourself out. I have included the basic pastry recipe I follow if I do get the urge to cover the kitchen in flour. With my evenings impatience though, I used pre made frozen pastry sheets.

Strawberry 'Cheesecake' Tart

Pastry
1 cup flour
A pinch of salt 
1/3  cup nuttalex
2  to 3 tablespoons cold water 

Filling
3 punnets strawberries
1/2  cup sugar 
2  tablespoons cornflour 
1/4  cup water 
1  pack tofutti cream cheese
1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Grated rind of 1 lemon

Sift the flour and salt together into your mixing bowl. Blend in nuttalex until dough forms into small crumbs, then blend in cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time till the pastry will form together into a ball. Flatten your pastry ball and dust with flour, wrap and refrigerate till the dough is firm and cold - about 40-45 minutes. Chilling the dough will give you a more flakey pastry. Roll the chilled dough till you can cut a circle with radius 5cm bigger than your pie tin. Lightly grease the pie tin, press the pastry in and bake at 250°C for around 10 minutes (or just follow what the frozen pastry says).

Take about a cups worth of the strawberries and mash or puree them. In a saucepan, mix strawberry mash, sugar and cornflour. Slowly blend in the water and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly till the mix boils and thickens to a  sauce. Set this aside to cool. 

Beat the tofutti, lemon juice and lemon rind till smooth. You could probably sweeten the tofutti mix a little if you like, but I usually don't since the strawberries are sweet enough. I do sometimes add a little white chocolate to the cheese mix which works well. 

Spread the mix into the pie crust. Slice the remaining strawberries and cover the cheese mix with them. Now pour the strawberry sauce over the top. If you're not impatient like I am, you should probably put it in the fridge to set... If you don't let it set, the filling will most likely start sliding off as soon as you start cutting slices, as seen in exhibit A below...



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Runny or not, it still tastes awesome!