Walnut Cranberry Tart for the Festive Season

Welcome December! We had lots of rain last night and this morning!! With the prolonged drought we have been in here in California, this is cause for celebration. Of course the coming holidays are also cause for joy...and lots of baking and making. Here is the first recipe I recommend to you, dear reader, for you holiday baking. It's a keeper. Do read through the full post before making it...there are tips for you.

I bought a bag of fresh cranberries sometime in early November. I do this almost every year because I know that before they get too old I'll come across a recipe or recipe idea where you need fresh cranberries...and there they will be in the bottom crisper drawer in the fridge.

That happened last week. There was no time to make the tart for Thanksgiving, but that weekend I had the time, so I made this delicious tart which combines walnuts, fresh cranberries, orange, and some brandy.

Instead of making a tart dough, I just used a refrigerated, rolled out pie dough circle. Once I fit it into my 9" tart base and pushed the dough up the sides, there was just enough to fold the rest of the dough down along the sides and push it into the sides...so I had double thick sides but a single thickness on the bottom. Of course a home made pie dough is delicious, so if you prefer to do that, the recipe is below the recipe for the tart.

Because I didn't have the size tart pan called for in the recipe (10-inch is called for but I had a 9-inch one), I knew that there would be extra filling. My solution was to let the fruit and nuts settle a bit after I mixed them into the filling, and then I poured out about a third of the filling into a spare bowl. I poured the rest into the tart shell and then topped it up with the filling in the spare bowl. It worked just fine, but I had leftover filling...without many bits of cranberry or nuts. My solution was to spray a pie dish with baking spray and then I added about a half cup of walnuts to the spare bowl and the filling still left in it. That mixture went into the prepared pie dish and it was baked at the same temperature...but for only about 15-20 minutes until the mixture was set. Sweetie had some after it cooled and he liked the mostly nuts version...without any crust!...better than the tart. I liked the tart better. I think that the cranberry added a freshness that the 'mainly nuts' filling didn't have. Still, if you would like to put in more walnuts and fewer cranberries (or none), feel free. I think you'll find that the orange-brandy-brown sugar filling works well with both.

Bakers tip: Zest the orange before you juice it.

Cranberry Walnut Tart

by Michele Anna Jordan, as published in the Nov. 23,2022 Press Democrat newspaper
Makes 6-8 servings

Pastry dough (recipe follows) (or do as I did and use ready made pie dough circles)

3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup agave nectar or maple syrup (I used 1/2 cup pure maple syrup and 1/2 cup dark brown Karo syrup)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon brandy
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup fresh cranberries, minced
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

First, make the pastry dough and chill it according to the instructions in the recipe.  Then, on a well-floured surface, roll out the dough into a 12-inch circle. Carefully lift the dough and put it into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing it gentle at the inner edge and crimping it all around. Cover and refrigerate until ready to fill. (Alternately, use a refrigerated pre-rolled pie dough round, folding the extra dough down the inside circumference and pressing gently into the indentations to make a double sided crust. Chill as described above.) 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Put the eggs into a medium bowl and whisk until they are thick and frothy, about 3 minutes. Add the brown sugar and agave nectar or maple syrup and stir well. Add the melted butter, vanilla, brandy, orange juice, orange zest, and salt. Fold in the cranberries and walnuts, pour the mixture into the tart shell and set on a baking sheet. Set the baking sheet on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake until the edges of the crust are golden brown and the filling is set, about 40 minutes. (Check at about 20 minutes and thereafter; if the top is getting too brown, tent loosely with foil.)

Remove from the oven and let rest at room temperature for at least 1 hour before cutting into wedges and serving.

Pastry Dough for Pies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 4 pieces , or 4 ounces of lard, chilled
3-4 tablespoons ice water

Combine the flour and salt in a medium mixing bowl. With your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter or lard until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal; work very quickly so that the mixture doesn't get too warm.

Make a well in the center and pour in 3 tablespoons of water. Use your fingers to mix the dough together quickly; add more water if needed for the dough to come together.

Press the dough into a ball, wrap it in wax paper and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes and as long as 2 hours.

No Snow but Jam Tarts are Fine

Well, it snowed high up on the nearby hills Friday night but not here. It's been plenty cold; well below 24 degrees F the last two nights. Fun to see the car windows all frosted up and ice in the galvanized tub. Sweetie even covered up my geraniums to protect them from the frost.

These sweet little jam tarts are something I baked for the abortive Valentine's tea party. I was going to freeze them but they ended up in the back of the fridge and were forgotton. I used teh recipe for Bakewell Tarts that the Daring Bakers used a while back.

Yesterday Sweetie put another couple of sheets of plywood on his storage shed and I fixed him some hot tea in the afternoon to warm him up some. Found the jam tarts, too, so I warmed them slightly in the microwave while the water was coming to the boil for the tea. Due to the jam, they stayed amazingly moist and the freshening in the microwave worked really well...they were almost as good as fresh baked.

The recipe is for a full tart size...8 or 9 inches size...but I made them in two sizes. Four tarts were made in my two inch tart pans and the rest were made in my mini-muffin pans. We decided we liked the mini-muffin ones best although the larger ones were probably prettier.

You can use any jam you like. I had some good quality seedless raspberry jam from Kozlowski's Farms on hand so that's what I used. The almond flavors are dominant here, so use a jam that you'll like with almond flavors.

If you are going to use tart pans bigger than the mini-muffin size, you may want to roll out the tart dough for even depth. I just pushed a piece of the dough in the bottom of each cup for the mini-mufffin ones so that some of the dough came a bit up the sides to cradle the jam.

These really are a great treat with tea or coffee...just the thing for this time of year, snow or no.



Bakewell Tarts
by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict

Makes one 23cm (9” tart)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes (plus time for the individual elements)
Resting time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 30 minutes
Equipment needed: 23cm (9”) tart pan or pie tin (preferably with ridged edges), rolling pin

One quantity sweet shortcrust pastry (recipe follows)
Bench flour
250ml (1cup (8 US fl. oz)) jam or curd, warmed for spreadability
One quantity frangipane (recipe follows)
One handful blanched, flaked almonds

Assembling the tart
Place the chilled dough disc on a lightly floured surface. If it's overly cold, you will need to let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes before you roll it out. Flour the rolling pin and roll the pastry to 5mm (1/4”) thickness, by rolling in one direction only (start from the centre and roll away from you), and turning the disc a quarter turn after each roll. When the pastry is to the desired size and thickness, transfer it to the tart pan, press in and trim the excess dough. Patch any holes, fissures or tears with trimmed bits. Chill in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Remove shell from freezer, spread as even a layer as you can of jam onto the pastry base. Top with frangipane, spreading to cover the entire surface of the tart. Smooth the top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Five minutes before the tart is done, the top will be poofy and brownish. Remove from oven and strew flaked almonds on top and return to the heat for the last five minutes of baking.

The finished tart will have a golden crust and the frangipane will be tanned, poofy and a bit spongy-looking. Remove from the oven and cool on the counter. Serve warm, with crème fraîche, whipped cream or custard sauce if you wish.

Elle's notes: To make smaller tarts or mini-tartlettes, roll out the pastry and use small cutters so that pastry bottom will fit your pans and come up the sides a bit to encase the jam. For really small pans you can just push a knob of pastry dough (about 1-2 teaspoons) into the bottom so that some comes up the sides a bit. Divide the jam among the tartletts and do the same for the filling. I found that putting the sliced almond piece(s) onto the filling before baking worked best.

Sweet shortcrust pastry
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Resting time: 30 minutes (minimum)
Equipment needed: bowls, box grater, cling film

225g (8oz) all purpose flour
30g (1oz) sugar
2.5ml (½ tsp) salt
110g (4oz) unsalted butter, cold (frozen is better)
2 (2) egg yolks
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract (optional)
15-30ml (1-2 Tbsp) cold water

Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Grate butter into the flour mixture, using the large hole-side of a box grater. Using your finger tips only, and working very quickly, rub the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Set aside.

Lightly beat the egg yolks with the almond extract (if using) and quickly mix into the flour mixture. Keep mixing while dribbling in the water, only adding enough to form a cohesive and slightly sticky dough.

Form the dough into a disc, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes

Frangipane
Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Equipment needed: bowls, hand mixer, rubber spatula

125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter, softened
125g (4.5oz) icing sugar
3 (3) eggs
2.5ml (½ tsp) almond extract
125g (4.5oz) ground almonds
30g (1oz) all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar together for about a minute or until the mixture is primrose in colour and very fluffy. Scrape down the side of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. The batter may appear to curdle. In the words of Douglas Adams: Don’t panic. Really. It’ll be fine. After all three are in, pour in the almond extract and mix for about another 30 seconds and scrape down the sides again. With the beaters on, spoon in the ground nuts and the flour. Mix well. The mixture will be soft, keep its slightly curdled look (mostly from the almonds) and retain its pallid yellow colour.

Some Kinda Wonderful

When Diana Salier contacted me to ask if I’d like to try some POM Wonderful pomegranate juice and blog about the results, it was easy to say ‘Yes’.

In general I avoid commercialization on my blog, mostly because I like to be free to do what I want to do. The reason it was easy to say ‘Yes’ was because I’ve already used the product and found it to be a delicious juice, 100% pomegranate juice according to the label.

Having some samples to play with encouraged me to think a bit outside of the box. It has many health benefits, but the recipe that came to mind first was not a bit healthy.

In her fabulous book Baking, from My Home to Yours, Dorie Greenspan has a recipe for a lemon cream that sounds dreamy. She makes an orange and a lime variation. I wondered if I could make a pomegranate and lemon version and how that would work.

Since I rarely make tarts, the first hurdle was making the tart dough and baking it as a crust in a tart pan. I know there are some for whom this is as easy as falling out of bed.

For me it was somewhat nerve wracking. I wasn’t sure that I processed the dough mixture enough (or too much) in the food processor and then I didn’t have a 9 inch tart pan, so I used a smaller one and a very small one, but was unsure if the volume was correct for that much dough.

When I was baking the frozen crusts, I thought the filling would cook faster, so when they needed to come out of the oven and have the foil removed, I was madly stirring filling with a whisk. Fortunately Sweetie was happy to take the crusts from the oven and then I used one had to stir and the other to remove foil!

As it turned out, the crusts are fine. Next time I might use a little less dough in the pans for a thinner crust, but these are OK. Next time I would increase the gelatin because the filling was a bit too goopey, even after chilling. The filling also seemed to be a dull color, so I added some food color. Not sure if that was a good thing, either, but I do like the combination of the spiced pears poached in more POM Wonderful pomegranate juice with the sweet tart creamy, buttery filling. You can taste the delicious flavor of pomegranate juice and the zing tartness of lemon juice.

Pomegranate Lemon Tart with or without Spiced Poached Pears
a variation of Creamy Orange Tart in Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

Tart Crust
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup confectioners sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons) very cold or frozen butter
cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Put the flour, confectioners sugar, and salt into the work bowl of a food processor with the steel blade. Pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut in. Stir the yolk briefly, then add to the ingredients in the food processor a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. Once the egg is processed, pulse the mixture with longer pluses, about 10 seconds each, until the mixture forms clumps. Turn the clumped dough out onto a work surface and very lightly knead the dough to incorporate any dry ingredients missed by the pulsing.

Butter a 9 inch tart pan. Add the dough and press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides. Save one little piece for patching once baked. Work gently to keep the crumbly texture.

Freeze the crust a minimum of 30 minutes or longer. While crust is freezing, you can make the filling.

Pomegranate Lemon Filling
1 cup sugar
Grated zest of one lemon
4 large eggs
¼ cup lemon juice
½ cup POM Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice
2 sticks plus five tablespoons (10 ½ oz) butter at room temperature, cut into tablespoon size pieces
1 tablespoon cold water
1 ¼ teaspoons unflavored gelatin

Bring a few inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan.

In a large heatproof bowl, rub together the sugar and the lemon zest. Whisk in the eggs, then whisk in the lemon juice and pomegranate juice.

Place the bowl over the pan of simmering water and stir with the whisk as soon as the mixture feels tepid to the touch. Continue whisking until the mixture reaches 180 degrees F (an instant read thermometer is best way to check). Whisk constantly. The mixture will start out foamy and eventually, just before reaching 180 degrees F, will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks.

As soon as the mixture reaches 180 degrees F., remove from the heat and pour mixture through a strainer into a blender (best) or food processor. Discard the zest that collects in the strainer.

Let the cream stand, stirring occasionally, until it cools to 140 degrees F, about 10 minutes.

Turn the blender on high or start the processor. Add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides as needed. Once the butter is incorporated, keep the machine going for about another 3 minutes.

While the machine is processing for the last 3 minutes, mix the cold water and gelatin in a small heatproof cup. Microwave for 15 seconds to dissolve the gelatin. Set aside.

Pour the mixed creamy mixture from the blender or food processor into a bowl. Whisk in the gelatin. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the pomegranate lemon filling.

Chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

While the filling is chilling, bake the crust, as long as it has chilled for at least 30 minutes in the freezer. (This would work far better than the way I did it, trying to bake the crust and cook the filling at the same time!).

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Center a rack in the oven.

Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Return to the oven and bake for another 8 minutes or so or until it is firm and golden brown. If there are any cracks in the baked crust, use the save piece of dough to patch them, then bake another two minutes.

Let the crust cool completely before filling.

Take the chilled filling from the fridge and whisk vigorously to loosen.

Spoon the filling into the cooled crust and spread evenly. Serve now or refrigerate until serving time. Serve within four hours for best crust results.

Optional addition - pear topping :

While cream is chilling, poach a pear or two that has been peeled, cored and sliced

in the following poaching liquid:

1 cup POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
¼ teaspoon freshly grated or ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Poach the pear slices for 5 – 10 minutes until pink and softened. Remove from poaching liquid with slotted spoon or skimmer and let cool completely.

Place a layer of pear slices on the crust and cover with the pomegranate lemon filling or spread on the filling, then arrange pear slices attractively.

If pears are on top of tart, you can glaze them with:

1/3 cup apple or quince jelly mixed with ½ teaspoon water

Bring to a boil, then use a pastry brush to glaze the pear slices and pomegranate lemon filling.

Chill to set the jelly before serving.

Kings and Queens of Tarts

Another Daring Baker challenge my friends...a tart. Veron and Patricia have given us a most yummy challenge in the form of a Milk Chocolate Caramel Tart from Eric Kayser’s Sweet and Savory Tarts. The recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.

Due to lots of commitments at the end of the month, I baked this tart early in the month, so mine included the cinnamon in the crust (which became optional later) and the dry method of making the caramel (which also became one of two options later).

Learning new skill, or revisiting old ones is part of the joy of these challenges. I'd never made caramel using the dry method, so I learned how, with a little experimentation (see below). Since the recipe was brief and assumed some experience in making the various parts, we were instructed to "read between the lines" in making the tart. Very glad to have made this recipe. It was rich, but delicious and surprisingly light. Despite my best intentions to give some of it away, I'm afraid that Sweetie and I ate most of it ourselves over a period of 5 days. The tart tasted better to us each day, especially the caramel, which got more and more gooey.

The August challenge for the ever growing ranks of the Daring Bakers is a European style tart, thin and rich and elegant. The crust includes ground hazelnuts, cocoa, cinnamon, butter and confectioners sugar. Its texture is crisp and cookie-like. Inside this crisp, not too sweet crust is a layer of very sweet caramel topped with a frothy mousse of whipped cream and melted milk chocolate.

My caramel is soft but not runny and so the combination of textures works well. The flavor components are another matter. Both the caramel and the mousse are fairly mild and dairy flavored. The crust has a very strong cinnamon flavor and, less so, a cocoa flavor. The nuts give negligible flavor to the dish. If I were to do it again, I’d leave out the cinnamon, but maybe put some ground dark chocolate into the crust instead, or a good shot of vanilla. With some whipped cream decorations around the edge, the tart is pretty and perfect to serve to some favored friends.

I learned some new skills while making this tart and revisited some, too. I used a hand rotary grinder to grind the nuts, which is something I learned from a German friend of mine. It produced a finer texture, almost like a flour, than what you get with the food processor. One thing I made sure to do was to really beat the dough mixture well at each point. That resulted in a nice, plastic-like texture which made it easy to form into a crust in the tart pan. The recipe makes enough dough for 4 tarts, so if I were to do it again I’d cut the recipe for the crust in half. Blind baking by pricking the dough with a fork, then lining the tart with parchment, then filling it with dry beans (which I save for this purpose) resulted in a nice thin crust. Once I removed the beans and parchment, I put the tart crust back into the turned off oven for 15 minutes to crisp up the bottom.

The caramel presented even more of a challenge. I made my tart early in the month before a different version of making the caramel had surfaced. In some ways I’m glad, because I learned so much this way.

I had no trouble turning the sugar into caramelized sugar, but when I added the cream, which had been warmed a bit, the whole mixture seized up. Panic would have ensued without prior assurances by another Daring Baker that if this happened, to keep stirring and cooking until it all was smooth again. Well, I added the butter and tried that, but grew impatient. After straining the liquids from the solids, I returned the solids to the pot and, over high heat, let it liquefy again. Once that happened, still over high heat, I whisked the liquid into it, a little at a time. That worked well. The mixture thickened up a bit. When it came time to do the eggs, I added a tablespoon of flour to the eggs and saw that there were lots of lumps. I strained that mixture, too. Learning from my mistakes, I ended up incorporating some of the mixed eggs into the rest of the flour rather than adding the flour to the eggs. The resulting mixture easily mixed into the cooled caramel mixture. Then I poured it into the cooled tart pan and baked it 15 minutes. It looked perfect.

I let the tart cool overnight in the fridge and made the mousse the next day. Melting the milk chocolate in the microwave was easy. One minute at a time at half power, stir, another minute at half power, stir, and so on until its all melted. The cream whipped up in the chilled Kitchen Aide mixer just fine. I folded some of it into the slightly cooled melted milk chocolate to lighten the chocolate, then folded that into the rest of the whipped cream. Even so, I had a few little flecks of unincorporated milk chocolate, but that didn’t affect the taste. I suspect that if I had cooled the chocolate just a bit more that there would not have been any flecks.

I smoothed the mousse over the caramel as well as I could, then refrigerated it for about 4 hours. Then I removed the tart from the pan and decorated it with little whipped cream starting around the rim and a few in the center. For serving, I used a serrated small knife to make sure that I could cut the crust. It was a hit, aside from the strong taste of cinnamon. When I just tasted the caramel and mousse together, it was even clearer that I didn’t care for the cinnamon flavor at all with this tart.

Glad that Veron and Patricia chose this luscious Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart for August. I learned that my idea of incorporating something was the exact opposite of what the recipe said. I stayed cool when my caramel turned bad and celebrated when it was saved. I barely resisted eating all the left over mousse in the bowl and did not resist having a second piece. Delicious! Even more delicious the next day.

Read all about how each King and Queen of Tarts (Daring Bakers) made their tart by visiting the blogroll

here.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Daring Bakers Challenge #9: August 2007
Hosts: Veron (Veronica's Test Kitchen) and Patricia (Technicolor Kitchen)
Post Date: Wednesday, August 29
Quantity: One (1) 9" Square or one (1) 10" Round tartChocolate Shortbread PastryNote: The Chocolate Shortbread pastry can make 3 tart shells. So, if you want to cut that recipe into thirds then do so but Veron and Patricia are not promising it will scale down properly.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Refrigeration: overnight
To make 3 tart shells: 9 ½ inches (24 cm) squareor 10 inches (26 cm round)

Ingredients:
1 cup (250g ) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150 g) confectioners’ sugar
½ cup (50 g) ground hazelnuts
2 level teaspoons (5 g) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 ½ cups (400 g) cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
1 ½ tablespoons (10 g) cocoa powder

A day ahead
1. In a mixing bowl of a food processor, cream the butter.
2. Add the confectioners’ sugar, the ground hazelnuts, and the cinnamon, and mix together
3. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing constantly
4. Sift in the flour, the baking powder, and the cocoa powder, and mix well.
5. Form a ball with the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and chill overnight.

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking Time: 30 minutes
Refrigeration time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
½ lb (250 g) chocolate shortbread pastry (see recipe above)
1 ½ cups (300 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (250 g) heavy cream (30-40 percent butterfat) or crème fraiche
¼ cup (50 g) butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ tablespoons (15 g) flour
1 ¼ cups (300 g) whipping cream
½ lb (250 g) milk chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (160 °C).
2. Line the baking pan with the chocolate shortbread pastry and bake blind for 15 minutes.
3. In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Incorporate the heavy cream or crème fraiche and then add butter. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to cool.
4. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.
5. Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.
6. Spread it out in the tart shell and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
7. Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: beat the whipping cream until stiff. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, and fold it gently into the whipped cream.
8. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.

Alternate Caramel Method:
If you have problems with the dry method, you may use this method.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon corn syrup
Set mixture in a pot over medium-high heat and stir slowly. When the mixture comes to a boil, stop stirring and leave it alone. Wait till desired color is attained. Proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Caramel Fragments:
Melt ½ cup (100g) granulated sugar in a saucepan until it reaches an amber color. Pour it onto waxed paper laid out on a flat surface. Leave to cool. Break it into small fragments and stick them lightly into the top of the tart.