sour cherry torte

sour cherry torte

• 21 Sept 2025

I recently inherited Mum's old handwritten recipe book. Mum wasn't a baker but she had some tried and true cake recipes, all of which were given to her by her best friend Milli. This recipe was written on a piece of paper in Milli's handwriting and I found it folded up within the pages of the book. I copied it out many years ago and the recipe has been stored in that dusty old recipe box for years. I can't remember Mum ever making this tart. She did not enjoy making pastry and she loved cherries so much, she would have eaten them all long before they made their way into a tart shell.

Milli's mother-in-law was born in Germany and she came to Australia as a young widow with her children around the time of the 2nd World War. Mrs. Ortweiler was a great cook and this was probably one of her recipes. I've done some research and although I can't find an exact match, there are a number of Swiss cherry tart recipes (Chriesiwähe) that are similar. As I'd never seen or tasted this tart before, I went in a little bit blind. I used frozen sour cherries for the tart filling, so increased the sugar a little from the original recipe which was quaintly measured written in tablepoons. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17-cm tart. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. If you'd like to make a 23cm tart, you'll have enough pastry but you'll need to double all the filling ingredients as the original recipe used a kilo of pitted cherries.

Sour cherry torte

Pastry 
¼ cup (45g) icing sugar
¼ cup (25g) almond meal
1⅓ cup (200g) plain flour
pinch salt
110 g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
cold water

Cherry layer
1 egg beaten with 1 tbs water
2 tbs fresh breadcrumbs
325g frozen sour cherries
1 tbs caster sugar

Filling

1 tsp plain flour

1 tsp milk
1 egg, separated
40g caster sugar
pinch cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon rind
20 mls lemon juice
30g sour cream

To serve
Icing sugar
Thick cream

Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. Refrigerate the pastry for an hour. 

You’ll only need about half of the pastry dough to make a 17cm tart. The pastry freezes well so just wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.  

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out thinly - 4mm thick. Line a greased 17 cm flan tin with the pastry mixture. Brush the pastry case with the egg mixture and sprinkle the base with the breadcrumbs then return to the fridge for another 30 minutes. 

While the pastry is in the fridge, preheat the oven to 200°C conventional and place a baking tray on the centre rack to preheat. Remove the pastry shell from the fridge, fill with the frozen cherries and place on the preheated baking tray. Reduce the temperature to 180°C, conventional and bake for 30 minutes. 

Filling
While the torte is in the oven, make the filling. Blend the flour with the milk, then add the yolk, sugar, cinnamon, lemon rind and lemon juice and stir until sugar has dissolved. Add sour cream and mix again. After 30 minutes, remove the tart from the oven, sprinkle 1 tbs caster sugar over the sour cherries and place to one side.

 
To finish the filling, beat the egg whites in a small bowl until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture then pour the filling over the cherries. Return the torte to the oven and bake for a further 30- 45 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and set. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. When completely cool unmould the tart. 

Just before serving dust the top of the tart with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of cream.

I shared this with the neighbours and it received rave reviews. 

The tart is delicious because of its simplicity. It has crisp tart shell with a tart sour cherry filling all topped with a soft lemon souffle mixture. 

See you all again next week, with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian