Desserts/ French Recipes

White Chocolate Tart with Cherries in Red Wine Sauce

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Help!! Cherry season only lasts 100 days in Australia! Yes, only 100 days during Spring and Summer (November through February)! Reading this fact on the internet made me scramble to buy my first Cherry Pitting gadget – that wonderful little thing that ‘pokes’ the cherry seed cleanly out of the fruit.

It’s great that cherry season in the southern hemisphere coincides with the Christmas season here, because cherries are made for Christmas – cherry tarts, pies and cakes, you name it!

In order to vent my lust for cherries (and to take advantage of the brief cherry growing season), I present my recipe for a White Chocolate Tart with Cherries in Red Wine Sauce.

Don’t let the fancy name throw you – the sauce is simply red wine and sugar heated together on the stove and then thickened with some corn flour. The filling is made with white chocolate blended with ricotta and mascarpone cheeses. Top with the cherries and red wine sauce and you’ve got yourself a delicious dessert!

Tips for making the pastry crust (see detailed recipe below) :

Use 6 individual tart pans (about 5 inches or 12 cm wide).

  •  Combine the flour, icing sugar and chilled butter cubes in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
  • Add the egg yolk and water and process until the dough just comes together.
  • Remove dough from the processor, form into a ball and knead on a floured surface for about 30 seconds. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  • Separate the dough into 6 equal pieces. Roll out each piece on a floured surface, using a rolling pin dusted with flour. First, roll the pin forward and backwards on the dough, then turn the dough 1/4 and repeat. Keep on rolling and turning the dough 1/4 until the dough is about 1/8 inch thick.
  • Transfer the dough onto the fluted tart tin so that the dough overhangs the edges.

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  •  Roll the rolling pin across the top of the tart pan in order to cut through the dough.

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  • Lift the outer edges of the dough away from the tart pan.

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  • Prick the crust on the bottom of the tart pan with a fork – this helps to keep the tart bottom from rising during the baking.

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  • Prepare to Blind Bake the dough before adding the filling: line each tart pan with parchment paper, ensuring the paper sticks up well above the edge of the pan.   Fill the pan with ‘pie weights’ covering the dough all the way up around the edges. This helps to keep the crust edges from ‘shrinking’ down into the tart pan and the crust bottom from puffing up during baking.
  • Note: pie weights are marble-like balls that you can buy at specialty stores. Alternatively, you can fill the tart pan with raw rice.

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  •  Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the pie weights and parchment paper and bake for a further 5 minutes until the crust is golden = 20 minutes total baking time.
White Chocolate Tart with Cherries in Red Wine Sauce
 
Recipe Type: Dessert
Author: Adapted from Woolworths ‘Cherry and Chocolate Tarts’ online recipe
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
A white chocolate tart combined with ricotta and mascarpone cheeses and topped with cherries and a delicious red wine sauce.
Ingredients
  • 2 cups (300 g) plain flour
  • ¼ cup (45 g) icing sugar
  • 10 tbsp (150 g) chilled butter- chopped
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 3 tbsp water
  • ½ cup (100 g) caster sugar
  • ½ cup red wine (1/2 cups)
  • 2 tbsp. corn flour mixed with 2 tbsp. water
  • 2 cups (450 g) pitted cherries
  • 1 ½ cups (260 g) white chocolate
  • ¾ cup (200 g) ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup (250 g) mascarpone
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F (190 C).
  2. Prepare the tart dough from the instructions above. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and let cool.
  3. While the dough is baking, prepare the cherry sauce. Heat the wine and sugar over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the corn flour and water together to make a paste, then add this mixture to the wine/sugar mixture to thicken.
  4. Add the pitted cherries to the pan and simmer for several minutes until the cherries soften. Set aside.
  5. Prepare the tart filling: melt the white chocolate in the microwave or alternatively melt the chocolate in a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.
  6. Add the ricotta cheese and mascarpone cheese to the melted chocolate and mix until smooth using a electric mixer (or blender).
  7. Divide the filling equally between the 6 pastry cases and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Top with the cherries and sauce and serve.
 

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15 Comments

  • Reply
    Maureen | Orgasmic Chef
    December 16, 2013 at 6:25 pm

    Wow, these little tarts scream Aussie Christmas, don’t they? Gorgeous!

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 16, 2013 at 10:09 pm

      Thanks, Maureen. Yep, Cherries and Christmas do go together!

  • Reply
    Joanne T Ferguson
    December 16, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    G’day Fran! Your photo and recipe look delicious, true!
    LOVE the step by step photos! VERY helpful and inspiring too!
    Cheers! Joanne

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 20, 2013 at 1:42 pm

      Thanks Joanne for your nice comments!

  • Reply
    Angela Montgomery
    December 16, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    Absolutely gorgeous Fran, what a wonderful recipe!
    You’re so right, our cherry season is so short, we should make the most of it 🙂

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 20, 2013 at 1:43 pm

      Yes, and now I’m tempted to make cherry pies and the whole lot!

  • Reply
    Kumar's Kitchen
    December 18, 2013 at 3:24 am

    wow….so good and such a gorgeous treat…perfect for this time…especially for the red and white themed dessert…only to look at this beautiful tart and the intro makes us crave it…ricotta and mascarpone pair so beautifully…thanks for the inspiration:-)

  • Reply
    John@Kitchen Riffs
    December 19, 2013 at 7:57 am

    These look wonderful! Not cherry season here, alas, but I’ll save this for when it is! Terrific recipe – thanks.

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 20, 2013 at 1:46 pm

      Oh well, once I bought some cherries in the US imported from Chile, when American cherries were out of season. They still tasted good!

  • Reply
    Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
    December 20, 2013 at 9:06 am

    I think cherries are my favourite fruit of the season! I didn’t realise that there were 100 days of them though! Must buy some this weekend! 😀

  • Reply
    Anneli Faiers
    December 21, 2013 at 4:20 am

    Beautiful as ever Fran 🙂 I love cherries and I often serve them with duck in a red wine sauce. But I bet they taste divine against the white chocolate tart.. Love the little slice out of it….but I would want more than that!

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 22, 2013 at 4:03 pm

      Hmm, duck with cherries in red wine sauce- good idea and would be a nice variation from the usual duck with orange sauce!

  • Reply
    GourmetGetaways
    December 21, 2013 at 10:16 am

    I can’t believe that our cherry season is only ten days long!! Lucky it is a Christmas fruit because Cherries are so festive! I love these little tarts,, so perfect for Christmas, delicious.

    • Reply
      Fran
      December 23, 2013 at 3:33 pm

      Actually, the cherry season is 100 days long- heaven forbid if we only had 10 days of cherry growing! Thanks for your comment!

  • Reply
    Joanne
    December 22, 2013 at 1:16 am

    I eat cherries like they’re going out of style in the spring. Mostly because they are! And by style I mean season. 😛

    This tart is pretty perfect!

  • I love comments!