SHF # 9 - Cherry and Walnut Tart

It’s Sugar High Friday again and this month’s edition is hosted by Jarrett of "Life in Flow/Food Porn Watch" and the theme is “Tantalizing Titillating Tempting Tarts”.

This time I decided not to use one of my mother's recipes and chose instead a tart from one of the Tele-Culinária books in my collection: Tarte de Cerejas com Nozes (Cherry and Walnut Tart).

The recipe called for a pastry dough that used an egg yolk as the binding liquid, instead of cold water. The resulting dough can and should be kneaded and let rest for 30 minutes. The pastry turned out well and was easy to handle although the amount was a bit too small for the amount filling the recipe called for. I had to roll the pastry quite thin, between two sheets of wax paper, to be able to cover the required 9-inch tart pan.

For the filling, 1 pound of cherries were pitted, mixed with a tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 cup of Port wine and let macerate for a couple of hours in the fridge. I prepared them this morning and left them in the fridge the whole day. Once the tart pan was prepared, the cherries were well drained and spread over the pastry. A mixture of sugar, butter, eggs and ground walnuts was then poured over and the tart put in the oven.

Although the tart cooked the prescribed 40 minutes, I think it might need a little longer in the oven not to finish cooking the dessert but to help evaporate the Port wine. There should be a subtle perfume of Port wine lingering in the cherries and not the raw flavour that greeted my tastebuds. Also, the tart would have improved with a thicker crust. It would have been better to use an 8-inch tart pan and about half of the filling.

It is a flavourful dessert, although I wasn't particularly taken with the marriage of walnuts and cherries.