Ricotta Tart With Lemon Poppy Crust Recipe (2024)

By Melissa Clark

Ricotta Tart With Lemon Poppy Crust Recipe (1)

Total Time
1 hour 15 minutes, plus 1½ hours’ chilling and cooling
Rating
5(450)
Notes
Read community notes

This simple, not-too-sweet tart is reminiscent of a cheesecake but with a higher crust-to-filling ratio. If you’ve got excellent, ripe fruit, feel free to lay it on top — berries, figs, poached rhubarb or pears, pineapple, plums — anything sweet and juicy will contrast nicely with the milky ricotta filling. Or just drizzle the tart with good flavorful honey and serve it plain. It’s an elegant way to end a meal.

If you aren’t a poppy seed fan, just leave them out of the crust. Or substitute sesame seeds instead for a similar crunch, if different flavor.

Featured in: This Ricotta Tart Is a Canvas for Any Summer Fruit

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Ingredients

Yield:8 servings

    For the Tart Dough

    • cups/185 grams all-purpose flour
    • ½cup/50 grams blanched sliced almonds
    • cup/40 grams confectioners’ sugar
    • Grated zest of 1 lemon
    • Pinch kosher salt
    • ½cup/113 grams/1 stick unsalted butter, cold and cubed
    • 1large egg, lightly beaten
    • 1tablespoon/10 grams poppy seeds

    For the Filling

    • ¼cup/55 grams mascarpone
    • ¼cup/50 grams sugar
    • teaspoon/1 gram cinnamon
    • cups/400 grams ricotta
    • 1large egg plus 1 large egg white
    • 1teaspoon/5 milliliters good strong honey, more for drizzling (optional)
    • teaspoon/1 gram kosher salt

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)

397 calories; 24 grams fat; 12 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 37 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 13 grams sugars; 10 grams protein; 167 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Ricotta Tart With Lemon Poppy Crust Recipe (2)

Preparation

Make the recipe with us

  1. Step

    1

    Make the tart shell: Place ¼ cup/31 grams of flour and the almonds in a food processor with the blade attachment. Process until almonds are finely ground, about 1 minute. Add remaining 1¼ cups/154 grams flour, the sugar, the lemon zest and the salt. Pulse to combine.

  2. Add butter and pulse until a coarse meal forms. Add egg and pulse just until a crumbly dough comes together. Add poppy seeds and pulse briefly to combine. Press dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight.

  3. Step

    3

    When ready to bake the tart, roll the dough out between 2 sheets of plastic to a ⅜-inch thickness. Line a 9-inch tart pan with the dough and chill for 30 minutes.

  4. Step

    4

    Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line the tart shell with foil and fill with baking weights. Bake for 20 minutes, then carefully remove the foil and baking weights. Continue baking, uncovered, for about 15 additional minutes or until tart is light golden in color.

  5. Step

    5

    While the tart crust is baking, make the filling: In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine mascarpone, sugar and cinnamon. Using the paddle attachment, beat mixture until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add ricotta, egg plus egg white, honey and salt, and mix to combine. Pour filling into baked tart shell and smooth the top (crust can still be hot when you add the filling).

  6. Step

    6

    Bake tart for 20 to 30 minutes, or until filling is just set in the center (a little wobble is O.K.). Let cool at room temperature on a wire rack. If you like, drizzle with honey or arrange fruit on top just before serving. Tart is best served the same day as baking.

Tips

  • Crust can be baked 1 day ahead and stored at room temperature.
  • BERRIES Heap a mix of ripe berries, whatever kinds are available, on top of the tart (1 to 1½ cups is about right). Garnish with powdered sugar or drizzle with honey if you like.
  • FIGS Trim and halve a pint of ripe figs and arrange over top of tart. Drizzle with honey or orange blossom water, or both, if you like.
  • STONE FRUIT Toss 1½ cups of sliced stone fruit (peaches, apricots, plums or a mix) with just enough maple syrup or honey to sweeten. Mound over tart.
  • RHUBARB Dice ¾ pound of rhubarb and simmer with 1 tablespoon water, ½ cup sugar and 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise. When sugar dissolves and rhubarb is tender, about 5 to 7 minutes, remove from the heat. Let cool before spooning compote over the tart.
  • POACHED PEARS Peel and core 2 large or 3 small pears and halve them lengthwise. Poach in red or white wine, sweetened to taste with honey, until just tender, 10 to 30 minutes depending upon the variety and ripeness of fruit. Let cool in poaching liquid, then slice and fan out on top of tart. You can season the poaching liquid with a bay leaf, cinnamon stick, star anise or a split vanilla bean if you like.

Ratings

5

out of 5

450

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Private Notes

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Cooking Notes

Melissa Clark

You can just substitute regular flour - use the volume measure rather than the weight (so use 1/2 cup flour in place of the 1/2 cup ground almonds). Let me know how it comes out!

Andrew O

About the blind baking; in the video, Ms Clark mushes the dough into the pan by hand, docks it, and blind bakes it uncovered. The instructions tell you to roll out the dough, not dock it, and blind bake it with foil and pie weights. Guessing/hoping that docking and weighting are supposed to do the same thing (keep the dough from puffing up at the bottom) and that it was shortbready enough to not collapse inward, I mushed/docked/didn't cover, and it worked out great.

Chantelle

First time making a tart and I even bought a tart pan especially to try this out - success! Couldn't find marscapone so used whole milk yogurt instead. I live in the Cayman Islands so used some fresh local Nam Doc mangoes for the top - great just raw and sliced thin with drizzled gingered honey from South Africa.

mbk

Crust is lovely! Tart not too sweet.
Pressed into pie plate instead of rolling (as in video)
I didn't have right size of ricotta (only 250 gr) so completed with marscapone. That works too! Will try 'correctly' next time.

Erika

I would love to make a tart with a crust that holds up once I roll it out and try to put it in the tart pan. Every time I make a crust with the exact ingredients listed, it crumbles. Seems like there's never enough butter in a recipe to hold it together. I never have a problem with PIE crust, though!

Autumncook

Delicious without being too sweet. The lemon peel in the crust gives it a very light summery taste. Be sure to use fresh "dry" ricotta.

Jackie Tan

super nice and flavorful crust. Not too sweet at all. You really need to wait until the whole thing chills down to room temperature before cutting into it though. I was running out of time and did not wait. The custard sort of fell apart.

Volker

Congratulations!

Measurements are in cups, spoons and METRIC measurements.

VM

Vitocita

Ricotta tart is very popular in Argentina and in fact, we add lemon zest to the filling, too!

M

The first time I made this I liked the flavors but hated the crust-to-filling ratio. This time I added orange blossom water and made approximately 1.5x the filling and found it a much better fit:
3/8 c mascarpone
3/8 c sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 3/4 cups ricotta
2 full eggs
1/8+ tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp orange blossom water

Took a bit longer to set in the oven (add an egg white next time?), but delicious.

Eva Santos-Phillips

It is a good base for a delicious pie. I made it for a friend with a gluten-free crust and with poppy seeds and it came out very nicely. My husband and I found it too sweet with honey, but would like to try it with a dark chocolate sauce drizzled over it.

BH

I was disappointed by this. It all sounds good but I found it didn't taste like much. I didn't serve it with any of the suggested toppings.

Kandy

Flavorful and a good base for fruits as mentioned in the recipe. However, my filling took another 25 minutes to bake until it was somewhat solid, for a total time of 55 minutes. It puffed up in the oven but settled nicely as it cooled.

John Gordon

It worked fine by hand. Too thick for a whisk, so I used a wooden spoon.

PJ

Made this with GF flour and just regular almonds, ground, and the crust was great. I'd say, use the very best ricotta you can find- it's a forgiving recipe, but I think it's a great way to showcase very good dairy. So, we didn't have honey on hand, and I used demerara sugar, which was good. I served it with amazing fresh apricots, slightly cooked in a demerara simple syrup. I loved the rustic flavors and tastes, and I think it can be a pretty fast desert, with practice.

Merle

Excellent! Melissa does it again. Not too sweet, easy to make, and delicious. I started with great ricotta, used cream cheese & sour cream in place of mascarpone to stick with what I had. Put blueberries on top. Yum!

amazing

Love the mascarpone & ricotta mix , great tart

Mimi Cat

Like other readers, I had an issue with the crust-to-filling ratio. I used a 9-inch tart pan as instructed, but when examining the video, Melissa's pan seemed larger than 9 inches. Her end result was much thinner and crispier looking than how mine turned out. I could have easily made two thinner and crispier crusts than one thick and dry, dense one. More transparency between the recipe team and Melissa Clark would reduce frustration and expensive mistakes for those making this at home.

Nikki

I used only 4 Tbsp of butter for the crust (instead of 8), and added 1 Tbsp of freshly-grated ginger for moisture and flavor. It turned out perfectly!

DKLA

Loved this recipe - crust is so yummy and I chilled overnight- I wasn’t really sure about baking to somewhat jiggly. I may have over cooked slightly cause the filling was more firm—Still going to repeat this, go for more giggle. And the honey is critical! Thanks Melissa!

H

Takes more than 30min to set in the oven! I baked mine about 35-37min to get the middle to be just set with a decent wobble in it.

Pat

My crust is very dry and crumbly, not coming together as a dough. What should I do?

laura

Has anyone tried making this crust using almond flour in place of the blanched almonds? If so- is it a straight conversion to 1/2 cup almond flour?

narya

I used sesame seeds instead of poppy, and lime rind instead of lemon, and I added some cardamom. For the filling, I used cardamom and ginger, plus more lime zest (at least a teaspoon each of the cardamom and ginger). I topped it with fresh mango (baked with the mango on top, to dry it out a bit). I brought this to a last-outdoor-grilling-of-the-season party with two friends who were making Indian food. It was a perfect dessert for the theme!

Ava M

I stuck to the recipe except for chilling the dough in the tart pan. I baked it straight away and it seemed okay. I didn’t think cinnamon in the filling was a good fit, especially with the lemon in the crust. Also wished I used full fat yogurt instead of ricotta on the filling. It has the texture of curdled milk after mixing and after it baked it had a grainy finish. I was expecting something like a full-bodied vanilla like custard. Unfortunately, this ain’t it, chief.

Orla

I only had an 11" tart dish, and it worked fine. I had paused as the recipe called for a 9" but it was fine. I used the pushed-into-place method for the dough, and it turned out perfect. I didn't have mascarpone so used yogurt and it was delish. Coz of the diameter difference, I did add more ricotta, yogurt, and an additional egg so that I didn't get a crazy thin layer of cheese filling. So while I didn't stick to the recipe perfectly, all of that is to say, it was delish and very forgiving.

Deb

Used almond flour in the crust instead of ground almonds. Could use a little more seasoning in the crust.

Luther

Really good tart. I did and didn't follow the recipe from both the written version as well as the video version. After making dough, refrigerated for 1 hour. Did not roll the dough but put it in pan and push it around as in video. Chilled. Did not cover when baking crust as written but uncovered as video. Mistakenly threw all ingredients for filling into bowl for mixing. No problem! Turned out great. Topped with homemade fig preserves. Excellent results and not a heavy dessert. Thanks Ms. Clark.

Karen

In the video, Ms Clark seems to put it directly into the oven without refrigerating it for 30 minutes first, as directed in the recipe. I am short on time and hope that this is going to work OK. (It would be nice if the video and the directions matched.)

annette mambuca

Melissa - you don't specify "dry" ricotta, but one of the notes indicate that's what we're to use. Can you clarify?

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Ricotta Tart With Lemon Poppy Crust Recipe (2024)
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