Cherry and Almond Tart
While I refer to this recipe as a cherry almond tart, it could also be called either a cherry clafoutis or a cherry frangipani. To put it in layman’s terms, it’s cherries baked in batter.
While so simple to make, the flavours come together to create something beautiful. The key to what makes this recipe so brilliant is the ratios. More importantly, the very high cherry to batter ratio.
From my perspective, you can never have too many cherries and the batter should be there purely to fill the gaps and hold everything together. The batter is also quite rich, being pretty much butter, sugar, eggs and ground almonds - so a little goes a long way.
I love this best for a Sunday breakfast or as a morning tea to impress. Sometimes, I even I stone the cherries and make the batter the night before, so that in the morning you just bring the two together, then let the oven do the baking.
PS – don’t ever let your guests in on how dead simple it is to make.
Cherry and Almond Tart
Serves 6 - 8
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
600 - 800gms cherries
90gms castor sugar
90gms ground almonds
100gms butter*
2 eggs
Vanilla extract
Salt
*Dairy free instructions at bottom of recipe
Start by pre-heating the oven to 180°C (350°f) on the fan bake setting.
Next, create the batter by placing the castor sugar, ground almonds and eggs in a bowl. Melt butter in a microwave for 45 seconds and add to the mixture. By hand, whisk all the ingredients together. Once combined, add a dash of vanilla extract and pinch of salt and mix through. Set the batter aside to rest for at least 10 minutes – this can also be done a few hours or even the night before baking the tart.
With a stone pitter, remove the cherry stones and stalks. I squeeze each cherry after putting through the pitter to make sure the stone actually came out. If you don’t have a pitter, there are lots of different methods you can use – they’re just more time consuming. My favourite alternative is to remove the stem of the cherry, then place the cherry on top of an empty wine or beer bottle. While holding the cherry in place, use a chop stick or like object to stab through the middle of the cherry, removing the stone.
Grease a 26cm tart pan with butter and lightly sprinkle with caster sugar. If you don’t have a tart pan, you can use any baking dish of a similar size. Pour in the cherries and spread evenly – they should nearly completely cover the bottom of the pan.
Next, pour the batter over the top of the cherries. With a spatula, mix the cherries through the batter – making sure the batter has been evenly spread around the tart pan.
Once the batter has been spread evenly through the pan, place the tart in the pre-heated oven and bake for 35 minutes. The batter should bubble up and turn golden in colour. Rule of thumb, if you can smell it, the tart is either cooked or nearly cooked. When you think it’s ready – golden in colour and puffed up - remove from the oven.
Set aside to rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Dairy Free Version
Replace butter with 80ml of plan flavored oil - I’d suggest light olive oil. There is no need to microwave the oil as it is already a liquid so just add to the mixture, as is, and combine. Cook instructions are the same as above.
