Cranberry Lemon Tart

Last week, my good friend Kim invited me to a fabulous dinner at her house.  I said I would bring dessert and asked her what can I bring?  She said her family loves a good deep dish cherry pie.  I was gung ho about this because I've not yet made a cherry pie before. Well, cherries are out of season and I couldn't even find frozen cherries thus I had to get creative.  I wanted to deliver a dessert that gave similar flavors and visuals.  


So I came up with a lemon tart that would give the similar tartness of a cherry pie with a good sweet sugary shell.  I topped it with a cranberry compote to mimic the bright red cherries.

The idea was good but my execution of it was so-so.  For my lemon tarts, I like a sweet sable cookie like crust but I wanted to balance a little nuttiness so added some chopped pecan to the dough. I usually don't put egg in my sweet pastry shells but this time, I thought the pecans could use something to help bind so added 1 egg.  I think this was my downfall.  The end product crust was too hard.  It didn't crumble but had to press hard to break it.  I think I over baked it a bit too.

The cranberry compote was also too thin and runny and didn't set properly so it ran down the tart and the lemon curd showed up though.  I needed to use more corn starch or use gelatin next time.

This was a tried dessert.  I promised to document all my good and bad...so this is a lesson learn.  Will repost when I get it right.


The good thing is that Kim and her family loved the dessert and gave great compliments but I need to perfect the recipe and redo to the way it should have been.


Kim made a fabulous dinner of halibut with a nice pecan crust, roasted pepper & potato side, grilled asparagus, nice fall salad with more pecans and pears.  Yummy it was.


Now off to start my Thanksgiving cooking...stay tuned.