Danish-style Marzipan Tart

If you love marzipan, chocolate and strawberries, then this decadent Danish-style marzipan tart will be the perfect dessert to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Marzipan is pure joy. It’s my desert island dessert; this glorious sweet almond paste. I could write poetry about it. On my first trip to Denmark a while back to visit my husband’s family, I discovered that the Danish people love marzipan even more than I do and there are literally hundreds of desserts that incorporate marzipan in some way or other. However, the queen of marzipan desserts has to be the marzipan tart we had at my father-in-law’s birthday. I’ve been dreaming about that tart ever since. I bought a whole load of marzipan before leaving Denmark and decided I would have to recreate this delicious dessert, or at least something close to it.

I’m not the best baker and I have always sucked at baking pies and tarts in particular. So this was a challenge for me. However, after two failed attempts, I finally managed to get it right, and dare I say it was perfect! It’s very calorific, so make sure to watch your portions and maybe save it for a very occasional treat.

I got the crust recipe from the Joy of Baking website, and you can find the recipe here. This is one of the best baking websites on the Internet, the recipes have never failed me. I’ve tried numerous cake, muffin, cookie, and other recipes from there and they all turned out to be glorious. However, while the Joy of Baking recipe requires the use of a food processor, since I don’t own one I did it all by hand and it was fine.

As for the filling for this tart, I searched far and wide on the Internet and combined what I learned from a number of places into one recipe. While this recipe isn’t exactly difficult, it can be a bit tricky. Everything needs to be precise; you need to make sure to follow the instructions and do not cut corners. Seriously, I tried cutting corners a few times and failed miserably. Don’t do as I did. This recipe is suitable for a 10 inch pie dish and I used approximately half of the crust from the recipe linked above.

Ingredients

For the pie crust:

1. Two and a half cups of all purpose flour
2. One teaspoon salt
3. One heaped tablespoon granulated white sugar
4. One cup cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes (I froze the butter for an hour after cutting into cubes, just to make sure it stayed cold)
5. Half a cup of ice water

For the filling:

1. 200 grams of grated marzipan (if possible, use the European-style marzipan which is only lightly sweetened and somewhat firm, more like an almond paste)
2. Two eggs
3. Half a cup of all purpose flour
4. Three tablespoons milk
5. Half a cup of butter, room temperature and softened
6. Half a cup of granulated white sugar.
7. 100 grams of semi-sweet, dark baking chocolate
8. 15-20 fresh strawberries, cut in half or quarters
9. One cup of heavy whipping cream
10. Three tablespoons icing sugar

Method

1. Mix the salt and one tablespoon of sugar with the flour. In a food processor or by hand using a fork or whisk, mix the frozen butter into the flour until just combined into coarse crumbs. Slowly add the ice water, bring the dough together, cover in plastic wrap and then refrigerate for one hour.
2. Remove from the fridge, flatten the dough with a rolling pin, then gently place it into your pie dish or pan. Place some parchment paper inside the crust, then fill it with beans or weights.
3. Bake in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, remove from the oven, reduce the heat to 375, remove the beans and parchment paper, then return the crust to the oven for another 20 minutes or until the crust is golden-brown on and baked through.
4. While the crust cools, mix the grated marzipan, eggs, flour, half cup of sugar, softened butter, milk, and half cup of flour. You can either use a hand-mixer or whisk. Pour the mixture into the crust.
5. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes or until the marzipan mixture is firm.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. In the meantime, melt the chocolate either in the microwave or in a small metal bowl/pan on top of a larger pan filled with simmering hot water.
7. Spread the melted chocolate over the marzipan tart and allow to cool completely. Refrigerate for one hour.
8. In the meantime, using an electric mixer, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, add the icing sugar and continue whipping. Refrigerate for about one hour.
9. When both the tart and the cream have been in the fridge for at least one hour, take them out and spread the whipped cream on top. Assemble the strawberries on the cream. Place the tart in the freezer for 20 minutes to ensure everything firms up.
10. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

For other Danish-style tart recipes, check out this Danish-style Chicken Asparagus tartlets recipe.

© 2019, L.E.. All rights reserved.