xmas week 2025 - sour cherry almond tart

xmas week 2025 - sour cherry almond tart

• 15 Dec 2025

Welcome to Xmas Week 2025. If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've made loads of sour cherry items this year and for good reason. Sour cherries are delicious. 

Last year I borrowed a copy of Tarts Anon by Gareth Whitton where I found his cherry almond tart recipe. As you know I like to make recipes my own, so I came up with my own verison. The pastry recipe is my own. The brown butter filling was inspired by Natalie Paull from Beatrix Bakes and the sour cherry technique came from Gareth Whitton of Tarts Anon. 

I take my research very seriously so I've made this tart twice now, just to make sure the recipe was perfect and it is. You can make the tart the day before serving, just store it in an airtight container at room temperature.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm 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.

Sour cherry almond tart – inspired by a Gareth Whitton recipe

Almond shortcrust pastry
¼ cup icing sugar
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
Pinch salt
110g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cold water

Sour cherries
1 680g jar of sour cherries
caster (superfine) sugar, see method
citric acid, see method

Frangipane Filling
120g unsalted room temperature butter
100g caster sugar
1 tsp finely grated orange zest 
2 room temperature eggs 
110g almond meal
2g fine sea salt 
2 tbs plain flour 
20g dark rum or orange juice
5g vanilla paste

To decorate

fresh cherries (optional)

icing sugar

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. 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. 

Refrigerate the pastry for an hour and then roll out thinly - 4mm thick. Line a greased 17 cm flan tin with the pastry then return to the fridge for another 30 minutes.

Sour cherries
Strain the sour cherries from the jar, reserving the liquid. For every 100g of the cherry liquid, measure out 60g of caster sugar and 2g of citric acid. Add the sugar and citric acid to a saucepan with the cherry liquid, bring to a simmer over medium heat, then stir together to ensure the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. (This can also be done with the same amount of fresh pitted cherries by replacing the cherry liquid with water and poaching the de-seeded cherries in the syrup until they are soft.) Pour this liquid over the jarred cherries and let sit in the syrup for at least 3-4 hours before using.

Frangipane Filling
Start the frangipane by cooking half (60g) of the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until it turns a foamy tan brown. Scrape it into the bowl of an electric stand mixer to cool for 15 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional and place a heavy baking sheet on the middle shelf. 

Add the remaining butter, sugar and orange rind with the browned butter to the bowl of an electric stand mixer. With the paddle attachment, beat the ingredients on medium for about 8 minutes until the mix is pale and fluffy. Scrape the bowl down with a stiff plastic spatula twice during this.  Add the eggs in two additions, allowing the creamed base to re-fluff up between additions. If the creamed mixture separates from the temperature difference of too fast egg addition, just keep going, it will be dense but still delicious.

Weigh the almond meal and salt, stir through the flour and set aside. Stop the mixer and scrape the mix off the paddle attachment. We are working by hand and using a stiff plastic spatula now. Add the rum or orange juice and the vanilla and mix well. Tip in the almond meal and salt and stir thoroughly.

 

To assemble and bake
Pour a thin layer of almond batter (about one-third of the quantity) into the prepared pastry shell to cover the base. (This will keep the cherries in place when adding the remaining batter). Then, strain off 100 g of the marinated sour cherries (see previous page) through a sieve and discard the liquid. Blot the fruit on some paper towels, then arrange them over the batter in three concentric circles, with a gap of roughly ½ cm in between each circle and in between each cherry.

Pour the remaining batter over the top of the cherries, stopping about ½ cm from the top of the pastry and push any floating cherries under the surface. Place the tart into the oven to bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until the crust is an even golden brown and the centre of the tart is firm. 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool inside the tin. Once the cake layer has completely cooled, remove the tart from the tin. 

If you like you can gild the lily by crowning the tart with some fresh cherries. Otherwise to serve, portion into slices and dust with a light coating of icing sugar. A dollop of cream to serve with the tart is optional but it would be a nice touch.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas Week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian