If you follow my personal blog, you must know I recently started my MBA. Well, two weeks ago, I had my first exam and research paper due and guess what? I used my rather “recent” experience with Iceland (check out my trip post and pictures here) to help me come up with a subject and to write about it. The result? Well, because I don’t want to sound as if I’m bragging, I’ll just say that it was just as good and sweet as the recipe I am presenting to you today

The “Sumarterta”, or Icelandic Summer Skyr Tart was really inspired by two things. The first was my success with the paper. The second was the fact that I had come across a new, absolutely fabulous book filled with Scandinavian recipes.
Of course, its title couldn’t describe this any better: The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas.

Alright. There was a third thing that inspired me too. I needed some chocolate to cool down after all that intense work

So here’s the adapted recipe! To have the original, just omit the chocolate.

*Please note: the filling is done with raw egg whites.  I carefully pick my eggs from local farmers, so I was not worried, but of course, it’s a personal choice.

Ingredients

For the tart base:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
¾ cup softened butter
1 egg

For the filling:
2 egg whites
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup dairy sour cream/yogurt
(I used sour cream.)
3 oz cream cheese
(Because of the addition of chocolate, if you’d rather have a cheesecake-like tart than one with “mousse”, you might want to add a bit more cream cheese, or slightly reduce the sour cream.)
½ cup chocolate chips
¼ cup milk

To garnish:
8 strawberries, cleaned & halved
½ cup sliced almonds, toasted

Directions

1. Grease a round tart pan with butter and dust it with flour. (The recipe calls for an 11-inch pan, but you can also use a 9-inch one if you’d like to form high “walls” to your base – that will make it easier to handle the tart later. As you can see from the picture, I thought about this only after baking the crust…)

2. Combine the crust ingredients together – except for the egg – and mix them well until they turn into something resembling coarse crumbs. Add the egg and mix in as well.

3. Transfer the mixture to the pan and form your crust by pressing down the crumbs with your hand to achieve a “flat” surface. (And, as mentioned – form high “walls” to go around the base if you so desire. Or, keep it “cheesecake style” like I did.)

4. Bake for about 20 minutes – the crust should become golden. Then leave aside to cool.

5. With a mixer, combine the sour cream/yogurt with the cream cheese to form a homogeneous mixture. Melt the chocolate chips with the milk on low heat. Let cool down for a couple of minutes and then mix it in. If necessary, place in the fridge to cool a bit more.

6. In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites with a small dash of salt until frothy. Add the sugar and continue beating until the whites become stiff.

7. Fold gently the chocolaty mixture into the egg whites.

8. Pour over the cooled crust.

9. Decorate with the strawberries halves and the toasted sliced almonds.

10. Chill the tart for at least an hour in the fridge. Because the chocolate version felt so much more like a “mousse” than a cheesecake-like tart, I’d even advise six hours.