An easy, no-bake dessert, my summer berry tart is a winning recipe any time of year! But, with red and blue fruit on a white double-cream filling, Patriotic Summer Berry Double-Cream Tart is ready to celebrate the 4th of July or any other red, white and blue holiday.

It’s made with a flaky, store-bought sweet pastry tart shell! There. I said it. “Store-bought.” I confess. I’m not the best at making and baking pie crust from scratch! And, with a “toot sweet” life, I’m always looking for short-cuts here and there to make something beautiful and delicious for my family and this summer berry tart is made with a store-bought tart shell!

I splurged on the filling, though. I used Mascarpone cheese and made homemade whipped cream. But, you know what? Homemade whipped cream is super-easy – you just pour heavy cream into a cold deep metal bowl and beat it for a few minutes with an electric hand mixture, a stand mixer or immersion blender. Voila’ – homemade whipped cream!

Here’s a close-up of the glistening berries in my summer berry tart! Garnished with fresh mint, isn’t it pretty?

Patriotic Summer Berry Double-Cream Tart - easy and pretty for any red, white and blue holiday! #4thofjulyrecipes Click To Tweet

Are you wondering where to get a store-bought sweet pastry tart shell because you haven’t seen them at your local grocery store, right? (This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.). I bought mine at World Market. If you can’t get them at World Market, Amazon carries pre-made tarts of all sizes!

Here’s another idea: ask your grocery’s bakery department if they will sell you a pre-made 8 1/2″ tart shell. Chances are they will. And, probably pretty reasonably, too.

Here’s a super close-up of this with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. After I finished making this summer berry tart, I showed it to Charlie, who said “beautiful! But, what about sprinkling it with powdered sugar?” Genius. But, here’s the thing – the powdered sugar “melts” into the berries pretty quickly. Probably because the berries are coated in a glaze.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but finding a nice stream of “natural light” is difficult in our house. We live in a hot climate, so when we built this house, we faced our house in such a way that natural light doesn’t stream in through the windows. While we have many windows, none of them are ideal for food photography. So, I decided to try my home office window. In the photo above, my summer berry tart is on my office desk!

So, what do you think of this photo? I’m thrilled with it, but I PicMonkeyed the heck out of it! What is PicMonkey? It’s a free photo editing site that I use to edit my photos here on Toot Sweet 4 Two. Although it is free, there is a small cost to use some of its “Royale” features (about $40 a year). Here’s what this photo looked like before I edited it in PicMonkey:

Pretty amazing, right? I did some other photo editing to make this photo pop, but the main tool I used on PicMonkey is the “cloning” tool, which is located under “Effects”, then scroll all the way down at the bottom to “Advanced” and “Clone” is at the very bottom. Although I did a pretty good job of whiting out the background, you can see that I missed a couple of spots (check out the bit of green at the top of the photo under the paragraph above the edited photo plus the smug all the way on the right side of the summer berry tart).

So how about this adorable cake stand? You can customize it by putting your own seasonal ribbons through the holes. In fact, how about a list of things with links to resources you may need to have on hand to make and display this summer berry tart recipe?

Supplies and Materials List

Pre-made tart shell

Cake stand

Ribbon for cake stand

Metal mixing bowl

Glass mixing bowl

Liquid measuring cups

Dry measuring cups

Electric hand mixer or

Okay; are you ready to see this Patriotic Summer Berry Double-Cream Tart sliced? Wait for it…wait for it…

Tada!

What! Where’s the rest of the summer berry tart? Shouldn’t there only be ONE slice missing from the photo above?

Here’s the thing about being a married food blogger with a husband who loves sweets! He can’t wait until “later”. Usually I have to make the food I share on this blog in the morning, definitely before 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon when the natural light in the house starts to fade. While that’s usually okay for breakfast, making other dishes including desserts in the morning is a bit of a problem because the house smells delicious and it’s hard to wait!

But, wait he did. In fact, he waited overnight. I suggest that once you assemble the tart that you refrigerate it at least two hours before serving. But, you can refrigerate it overnight and this photo is proof. The night that I made this (after being in the refrigerator for 2 hours), Charlie had to have a slice, so when I took the sliced photos the next morning, we’d already eaten 1/6 of the tart!

Here’s a side view so you can see the creamy goodness of the filling.

Here’s a photo collage to pin to your Pinterest board…

and here’s another! I couldn’t decide which “background” to use for my Pinterest collage – the dark wood or the white background. So, you get both! Thanks for sharing!

Here’s the recipe:

Patriotic Summer Berry Double-Cream Tart

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An easy, no-bake dessert, Patriotic Summer Berry Double-Cream Tart is a winning recipe to celebrate 4th of July or any other red, white and blue holiday. A flaky, store-bought sweet pastry tart shell covered with a sweet double-cream filling and topped with fresh fruit, makes a beautiful and delicious treat for Independence Day.

Author: Carole from Toot Sweet 4 Two
Prep Time: 2 hours 30 mins
Total Time: 2 hours 30 mins
Yield: 6 1x
Category: Dessert
Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale

1 – 8 1/2 inch pre-made sweet pastry tart shell
8 ounce carton Mascarpone cheese, softened to room temperature
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5 ounces fresh raspberries (about 1 cup), rinsed and patted dry
6 ounces fresh blueberries (about 1 cup), rinsed and patted dry
1/3 cup raspberry preserves
Fresh mint sprigs, for garnish (optional)
Another 2 tablespoons powdered sugar, for garnish (optional)

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Instructions

Place medium-sized metal mixing bowl in freezer to chill.
In the meantime, prepare your berries by rinsing them in cold water and patting dry.
Place prepared berries in a small mixing bowl and set aside.
In a microwave safe dish, melt raspberry preserves until liquid (about 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on your microwave’s power) and set aside to cool for a few minutes.
Once the raspberry preserves have cooled slightly, pour over prepared raspberries and blueberries and gently toss to coat; set aside.
In yet another medium-sized mixing bowl, add softened Mascarpone cheese and powdered sugar.
Starting on low power, mix cheese and powdered sugar until combined and then increase speed to medium and mix well until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and mix again until combined.
Remove chilled metal mixing bowl from freezer and add heavy cream.
With an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer or an immersion blender, beat on high speed until soft peaks form (just a few minutes).
Scoop 1/2 of the whipped cream into the Mascarpone cheese mixture and fold-in by hand with a spatula.
Once almost mixed in, add rest of whipped cream and continue to fold together until combined.
Spoon double-cream filling into prepared tart shell and spread evenly, using spatula.
Spoon on prepared berries, leaving a one-inch cream border to show through (secret tip: don’t use spoon to “spread” the berries around or you will mush them. If you need to move the berries, use your fingers to place them around your tart).
Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
When ready to serve, use a fine mesh sieve to sprinkle powdered sugar over tart and then garnish with fresh mint leaves.