Number cake or number tart

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry:

• 1/2 cup softened butter (120 g)
• 2/3 cup icing sugar (80 g)
• 1 oz ground almonds (25 g)
• 1 packet vanilla sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups flour (200 g)

Mascarpone whipped cream:

• 250 g mascarpone
• 1 2/3 cups heavy cream (40 cl)
• 1/2 cup icing sugar (60 g)
• 1 vanilla bean

Decoration:

• 4.5 oz raspberries (125 g)
• 4.5 oz strawberries (125 g)
• 10 small meringues
• green almond paste

Materials

• Number stencils
• Rolling pin
• Flower-shaped cookie cutter
• Parchment paper

Preparation

• Shortcrust pastry:
  In a bowl, place the butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, and almond meal. Mix until you have a smooth "cream".
  Then add the whole egg and mix well. You should have a slightly grainy mixture.
• Now, add the flour and use your hands to mix until the dough becomes uniform.
  Wrap the flattened dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. (Do not form the dough into a ball, it will take much longer to cool).
  
• After this resting time, divide the dough into 2.
  Take one half, place it on a sheet of parchment paper, put another sheet on top, and roll it out very thinly.
• Print the desired number on an A4 sheet, and cut it out. Place it on the rolled shortcrust pastry, and cut around the number. Do this twice.
  Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the second desired number.
  
• Then refrigerate before removing the excess shortcrust pastry (it will come off more easily afterward). After 30 minutes, remove the excess shortcrust pastry around the numbers.
• Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
  
• Mascarpone cream:
  Place the mascarpone, very cold liquid cream, icing sugar, and seeds from the vanilla bean in a bowl. Whip at full speed to make the whipped cream.
• Place the first shortcrust number on a serving plate. Using a piping bag fitted with a plain tip, pipe small dollops of whipped cream onto the shortcrust number. Then place the same number-shaped pastry layer on top of the cream and repeat the process.
  
• Do the same with the second number. If the shortcrust pieces break, no worries, it won't be noticeable when assembled.
• Wash your fruits and arrange them nicely on the cream. Also, decorate with small meringues.
  
• Roll out your almond paste and cut it with a cookie cutter. Place some almond paste pieces on your cake.
• And there you have it, your Number Cake is ready!
  

Observations

The cream: you can replace it with whipped white chocolate ganache, mousseline cream, or diplomat cream, according to your taste.
The fruit and decoration: here we offer one version, but you are free to decorate your number tart as you wish!
Quick version: To make it much quicker, you can use ready-made shortcrust pastry and cut out your numbers directly. You will need 2 rolls of shortcrust pastry for this recipe.

Questions

Photos of members who cooked this recipe