Friday/Pieday: Cranberry curd tart

Two of my favorite things: Uncle Tommy and the New York Times Food section. Put them together and guess what happens? This incredible cranberry curd tart with gluten-free crust. The recipe is based on this one for the NYT, but we changed it because our household has nut allergies and used Tommy’s most perfect gluten-free pie crust recipe. Tommy would also prefer we call it cranberry velvet pudding pie or something like that. The word curd, he says, sounds wrong, especially next to the word tart.

The filling starts a lot like cranberry sauce with orange juice, peel, sugar and cranberries in a sauce pan. Tommy thinks the NYT recipe doesn’t make quiet enough filling so he adds more juice. You boil until the cranberries have burst and cooked down. Then you push the mixture through a mesh sieve. What comes out is a gorgeous crimson gel. Add your stick (!) of butter to the gel. Next, you beat the eggs and the egg yolks. And slowly add some of the hot cranberry mixture to the eggs to temper them. This is where you can go wrong so be careful! Then add the tempered eggs back into the main bowl and whisk. Put it back in the pan on the stove and cook it on medium heat until it just bubbles. Pour the hot filling into the tart crust. Bake it for 15 minutes. Let cool. Try not to be alone with the leftover pieces in the kitchen.

This recipe is great made with funky high-bush cranberries. Also fun to decorated with pomegranate arils, which are exactly the same color.

Cranberry Curd Tart

Ingredients:

12 ounce bag of cranberries

1 cup sugar

Juice and peel (orange part only, avoid the pith) of 2 oranges

1 stick butter, very soft

2 eggs and 2 egg yolks

Prepared pie crust (either the NYT nut one, this GF one or this press-in butter crust.)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350º

Press your crust into a 8- or 9-inch tart pan. Slide into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Place on a cool rack. Turn the oven down to 325°.

In a sauce pan on medium heat, cook the cranberries, sugar, orange juice and rind. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the berries pop and cook down. Press the hot mixture through a fine sieve, producing a bright colored gel. Add in the butter, which will melt. Beat the eggs in another bowl and slowly drizzle in a half cup of the warm cranberry mixture while mixing the eggs to temper them and keep them from curdling. Stir the tempered egg into the rest of the cranberry mixture and return to the empty saucepan. Cook on medium heat until just barely boiling. Pour into the crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool before slicing.