List of Ingredients
- Italian 00type flour
- 5 OZ. of butter
- sugar
- 1 C. of almond flour
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- Salt
- Green tea leaves
- butter
- 4 OZ. of almond flour
- sugar
- 2 OZ. of unsalted cashews
- 3 eggs
- 1 lemon
- 5 OZ. of mascarpone cheese
- 5 OZ. of cream
- 1 vanilla bean pod
- Gold leaf
- Powdered sugar
- Blackberries
- Silver sugar pearls
Method
Start by preparing the shortcrust pastry. Mix the flours in a bowl with a pinch of salt, the sugar and 1 teaspoon of green tea leaves; add the butter in pieces and work the ingredients together until you have a grainy mixture. Lastly, add the egg and the egg yolk and knead together. Form a ball of dough, wrap it in parchment paper, and let it chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Frangipane cream
Grind the cashews into a coarse flour. Combine the softened butter with the almond flour, ground cashews, the sugar, the grated lemon zest and the eggs until you have a creamy mixture. Remove the shortcrust pastry from the refrigerator and roll it out to 1/8 inch thick on a large sheet of parchment paper; cut into 2 squares (6 inches on each side), using a separate pastry cutter for each.
Remove the extra dough, leave the pastry cutters around the dough and transfer the two squares to a baking sheet, along with the parchment paper. Use the extra dough to make a small border (1/3 inch high) of dough all around the two squares. Spread a layer of Frangipane cream on each square, just below the border, and bake at 350°F in a convection oven, for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, then remove it from the pan and let it cool.
Cut the two squares in half, starting at the middle of one of the sides and not from the top. This way you will create 4 rectangles (3x6 inches). Cut each rectangle into 3 equilateral triangles; you will be left with 2 small right-angled triangles, which you won’t use. You will have a total of 12 equilateral triangles (and 8 right-angled triangles). To make it easier to cut, prepare the day before and refrigerate for a few hours.
To serve
Mix the chilled mascarpone cheese with the cream, the seeds from the vanilla bean pod and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar. Whisk to a firm consistency, taking care not to overdo it, otherwise the mixture will turn into “butter.”
Transfer this cream to a pastry bag with a ridged tip (1/2 inch). Decorate 6 triangles with small dots of mascarpone cream and the other 6 with the blackberries; use a touch of cream to “stick” the berries to the triangles. Arrange the tart triangles on a serving plate in the shape of a Christmas tree; decorate the white triangles with sugar pearls and the ones with blackberries with small pieces of gold leaf. You can also have fun arranging these tart triangles differently: from a five- or six-pointed star to more imaginative shapes.