In the chaos that the past month has been I managed to surprise myself with some pretty amazing cakes…Seriously, I made this! And you can too (I’ve included the foolproof recipe below).

Not only are we still settling in with a newborn, but half the family decided to have Birthday’s in July (thank goodness it’s almost August!). I set the bar high… firstly making this cake for my Mumma. Well technically it’s called a cream tart (but if you ask me it’s almost like a biscuit covered in tasty cream!)

These tarts are a huge sensation all over the internet right now, it got the better of me; I needed to know if they were as great as everyone was making out (and now I know… yes!)  If you’re looking for idea’s check out cream tarts on Pinterest, they can be made in the shapes of numbers, letters, or hearts like this one; and the toppings vary slightly too depending on the desired theme (macaroons, chocolates, berries, flowers). For this cake I just used what I had. In-season strawberries, and flowers straight from the garden (is it wrong that I pinched them from Mum’s garden while she was at work?)

So enough blabbing; as promised, here is the recipe. I hope you love it as much as we did!

Ingredients:

Tart/biscuit:

1 cup butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg

2 1/4 cups plain flour

1 cup almond meal

1 tsp vanilla essence

pinch of salt

Cream Filling:

250g cream cheese

2/3 cup icing sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

1 1/4 cup thickened cream

Directions:

1. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and almond extract and continue to mix until well combined.
2. In a separate bowl mix together sifted flour, almond meal, and salt. Fold through butter mixture until combined (don’t overwork the dough).
3. Wrap the dough in cling-wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C.
5. Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper, use a stencil to cut out your desired shape (I printed mine on card and used a knife to cut around it to get an even heart shape). Make sure to cut enough for a few layers (I rolled each biscuit so that the dough was about 1cm thick)
6. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes until lightly golden. Allow to cool before applying the filling.

Cream Filling:

1.Use an electric beater and beat cream cheese and icing sugar until well combined, add vanilla essence.

2. In a separate bowl beat cream until it forms stiff peaks. Gradually fold the cream into the cream cheese mixture.

3. Use a piping bag to pipe blobs onto the cooled biscuit base, layer the next biscuit and continue piping. Leaving a 4-5mm gap between each pipe.

4. Decorate with desired embellishments, refrigerate until ready to serve. ENJOY!