Strawberry-mascarpone baskets

Ingredients:

• for the pastry: 500g flour, 250g butter or block margarine, half a sachet baking powder, 100g powdered sugar, 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp sour cream
• to roll the pastry: wheat flour
• for greasing the moulds: butter
• for the filling: 1 jar (300g) Kecskeméti strawberry jam, 300g mascarpone, half a lemon, 2 tbsp powdered sugar, 54 small or 27 large strawberries

1. Mix the flour, the butter or margarine and the baking powder and then add and mix the powdered sugar, the egg yolks and the sour cream, to make the pastry. Form a roll on a flour-sprinkled pastry board and then cut it into 6 equal pieces.

2. Roll each to 3-4mm and cut each into 9 pieces. Grease the small basket-shaped moulds and line them with the pastry. Poke the pastry here and there with a fork and then bake it for about 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at medium heat (180 °C; or 165 °C in a fan-assisted oven). Once cooled, fill each pastry basket with a teaspoonful of jam and spread it onto their inside surfaces.

3. Add lemon juice and powdered sugar to the mascarpone for a nice tangy taste and then put about a teaspoonful of it into each basket. Wash the strawberries, remove their leaves and core, cut them in halves and place on top of the cream in each basket.

Useful advice:

If you cannot bake all of the baskets – because you do not have enough moulds, for instance – you can still manage; it will only take longer. Roll out and cut only one of the pastry pieces and you can leave the others covered on the pastry board. Place the filling in the fridge and only take it out when needed.