A Creamy Strawberry and Cream Cheese Tart with a Graham Cracker Crust

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians and a Happy early 4th of July to those south of the border! Hope both days are filled with happiness and celebration … and dessert!

My girls and I went strawberry picking a few days ago and now we have baskets and baskets of red to the core strawberries that are just begging to be eaten. While eating them straight up is our favorite way to go I decided to include them in last nights post iftar dessert. I don’t usually have dessert after dinner, but after a long day of fasting a little sugar seems needed!

The Graham Cracker crust has a lovely crunch that contrasts with the creamy filling and  the juicy slightly tart strawberries provide the perfect contrast. Learn from my mistakes though and keep this baby in the fridge until you’re ready to eat!

Looking for more strawberry dessert ideas? How about this cake or this tart with one  of my favorite crusts of all time!

Strawberry Tart

Recently my tot and I went strawberry picking at Andrew’s Scenic Acres and brought home quite a haul of ripe red strawberries. They were the kind of ripe that you could eat that day, but would need to make something with the day after and while the kid wanted strawberry cake I thought it is time to branch out a wee bit. After a fair bit of googling I used this strawberry filling and this beloved tart crust and created a little piece of strawberry heaven. I am so excited about how this turned out that I am debating making it again tomorrow because I only have a quarter of it left right now. Yes, I have a problem.

The strawberry filling has been edited a little and I am writing out my version below. The crust is a no knead just press one (my favourite kind) that I simply adore because tricky pie crusts on hot summer days really are not my thing. I had made the filling a day and crust a day before and so today I just put it all together and I do not know what I enjoyed more – the bubbly strawberry aroma that wafted through my kitchen or the incredible sweet yet tart taste of the filling enveloped in its buttery crust. Actually who am I kidding – clearly eating it is the best part!

Strawberry Summer Cake

I think it says a lot about this cake that my two year old now feels very comfortable telling people that she made it. The first time she actually said “mama helped me” and then next thing you know she apparently made it “all by myself”. Fact is that we have made it THAT many times that she feels like she knows what she is doing and it is so delicious that who wouldn’t want to take all the credit! Seriously though, I may have gotten her to mix, add ingredients, wash the strawberries, place the strawberries and sprinkle the sugar on top. I am sure I did something…

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart, but I actually came across it on Smitten Kitchen a while ago. It should go without saying that this tastes best when strawberries are in season, but it is still surprisingly good when they aren’t quite there. I have tried making it with less sugar and found that it really impacted the texture of the cake. It was still good, just not great.

Try this cake. It is so perfectly summer and so easy that even a 2 year old can make it (almost).