Strawberry mascarpone tart

Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries is one of my most cherished cookery books, and I find myself returning to it again and again for inspiration. His warm, and somewhat magical, writing style and beautifully simple recipes tick all the right boxes for me.

There's rebelliousness to Nigel's cooking that I really admire. He inspires me to feel that cooking is an adventure and perfection is never the aim. Preparing meals to please yourself and your loved ones - that's what it's all about. I say hooray for Nigel. I bloomin' love him!

Anyway, enough of the Nigel love-fest and on with the cooking. This is one of my favourite recipes from Kitchen Diaries 1. Rather than using the almond or orange biscuits that Nigel suggests, I opted for crushed shortbread (shortbread fingers, to be exact).  So what I ended up with was a version of a strawberry shortcake tart - and my goodness did it taste good!

The tart makes an ideal dessert, but my preference is as an afternoon treat accompanied by a glass of chilled prosecco.

You can find Nigel's recipe here.