BBQ79/17 – Cherry and Almond Tart:
Cherry and Almond Tart: A guest post from Mrs KungFuBBQ after her famous grilled peaches dessert she is back with something even better!
After a hard day picking fruit at the local farm, we had a little box of cherries screaming to be turned into something delicious. Nathan had just been showing me the Grill Smoke BBQ book by Ben Tish so it seemed rude not to give his Cherry and almond tart a whirl.
This recipe is from Grill Smoke BBQ by Ben Tish – You can buy the book by clicking the link below:
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Pastry is not my strong point but this recipe seems very forgiving as it turned out really well, even when cooked on the grill which is so much more temperamental than the oven…so I’m told, I just hand over the goods and Nathan does the hard part. Ben’s tip for rolling the pastry between two sheets of parchment paper was a great one as it really helped to lift the pastry without tearing it and making it look like a dog’s dinner.
Once your pastry is in the tin and chilling in the fridge you make a frangipane, one of my favourite pie fillings of all time – super easy too. You cream butter and sugar, beat in some eggs, fold in flour, ground almonds and Bob’s your uncle.
Blind baking the pie case is up next, in the oven. I guess you could do it on the grill if you were on an epic cook burning charcoal for hours but most likely this bit will happen indoors. Even after the rolling between parchment paper trick mine still looked a bit untidy (understatement of the year) but I figured I would just trim it at this point anyway so the more untidy the better….as that means you get bits of pastry to break off and test!
I ran a paring knife round the top and afterwards no one would have guessed how terrible it had once looked, winner.
The tart case was allowed to cool for 10 mins before adding the frangipane then studding with those awesome cherries. The recipe called for 220g but I think I had closer to 325g (before pitting, I forgot to weigh afterwards, oops) but you will see from my photo there are quite a few more of the little red jewels popping out of the top than in the book, and I think this was a good move.
Ben cooked his on a wooden plank, we didn’t do this, mainly because it was a last minute cook and we didn’t have any on hand so we just added a chunk of cherry. The wood had to be cherry really and seemed to do the trick.
I cupped the tin base and sides in foil. We have awesome tinfoil – it’s on a huge roll and it’s none of your flimsy supermarket stuff that tears if you look at it the wrong way, it’s robust and lasts for ages and is well worth the initial investment – highly recommended. I tore off a large sheet and folded it in half twice so in essence there were 4 sheets of foil hugging the tin to protect it from the extreme heat. This was placed on an upturned dish (to further protect it, my last cake burned so probably being over cautious but it worked, so do it!) over indirect heat for around 30 minutes, a bit shorter than the recipe said and I still think it was a bit overdone so keep your eye on it. I was looking for the skewer to be pretty clean and by 30 mins it still was a bit soggy looking but by the time it rests for an hour it had firmed up a bit more. So err on the side of caution here.
I thought this pud looked epic. The pastry turned out really well, the fresh cherries took on a great colour from the smoke and after a little dusting of icing sugar, it sure was pretty. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I would personally make a few tweaks next time….
Upping the cherries was a good thing, I still think it needed more and perhaps even a mixture of fresh and Morello cherries to perk it up a bit, it wasn’t quite sweet enough for my liking. The end result was a little dry too, I am putting that down to me cooking it for too long but just in case, next time I would add a layer of jam on top of the pie case before adding the frangipane layer. I had also made raspberry jam after our farm trip – I am super classy and decided to spread a layer on top of the pie and that made it sing, but it really did not look good so adding it beneath the topping would look slightly more elegant!
A great dish and with a couple of tiny tweaks I think it could be an awesome one.
Fruit pies are some of my favourites. What should we do next – a traditional fella like apple or something a bit different?
| Cook Equipment: | Weber Grill |
| Cook Method: | Indirect over flipped pan |
| Charcoal: | Leftover lit charcoal after a cook |
| Smoking Wood: | None |
| Cook temperature: | 200c and dropping |
| Cook time: | 30m and 1hr rest |
| Internal temperature: | Check it’s clear |
| Notes: | 1: Add a layer of jam on top of the pie case before adding the frangipane layer |
This recipe is from Grill Smoke BBQ by Ben Tish – You can buy the book by clicking the link below:
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