How to Make Cranberry Curd Tart with Almond Crust

Poor cranberries. The only way they get a seat at the holiday table is if they come in the form of a compote or a jelly. Well, I think cranberries deserve something more special. And Lon's here. She's going to show us how to take cranberries and turn them into a spectacular dessert. Bridget, you are so right. They deserve to be much more than a side dish. And so today we're gonna make a cranberry curd tart. Oh, sounds so good. I'm gonna start with the cranberries themselves. I've got four cups here. This is one pound of cranberries. I'm just gonna get them right into this medium pot. And you can use fresh or frozen. Next up, to tame their acidity and sharpness, I've got one and a quarter cups of sugar, half a cup of water, and just a pinch of salt. And we'll just turn this on. I'm gonna set this to about medium high, and I'm just waiting for that water to come up to a boil. I'll give this a couple stirs to help that sugar dissolve. So now that these have come up, I'm just gonna turn down the heat, pop a top on this, and we want those cranberries to pop, start to shrivel a little bit. Usually takes about 10 minutes. Okay. These look great. They've popped, they've shriveled, they've got that beautiful dark cooked cranberry color. Let's move on to the rest of this filling. I've got just three large egg yolks here, and to that I'm adding two teaspoons of cornstarch. I'm just looking to break up all the cornstarch chunks. So I'm just gonna dump these cranberries right into this processor bowl. Our egg and cornstarch mixture goes in, and the key here is you wanna make sure you're not messing around. You wanna get everything together while the berries are hot. Pop the lid on, and let her rip. That's it, we're done cooking. We're done mixing, we're done. That is so easy. It is. We're gonna let this cool for about 45 minutes to an hour, and while that's happening, let's make our tart shell. All right, so for this crust, I've got just a handful of ingredients. The key one being almond flour. Almonds are perfect for this. They're kind of rich and nutty. They've got these floral overtones. Pairs really well with berries. So I've got four ounces, which is one cup of almond flour. If you have a scale, this is the time to dig it out. To this, I'm adding two ounces of cornstarch. That's a half a cup. Next, a third of a cup, or two and a third ounces of granulated sugar, and last is half a teaspoon of table salt. I'm just gonna whisk this together, and I really wanna make sure to break up any clumps. This is looking pretty great. Last two ingredients are six tablespoons of melted and cooled unsalted butter, and three quarters of a teaspoon of almond extract. The world goes a long way with that one. It really does. And now, I actually want to switch away from a whisk. This dough is so firm and tight and kind of Play-Doh-y that it would just get caught up in the balloon of the whisk. There's no technique to this. You're just kind of mushing everything together until it's combined. No dry spots. So this looks great. Let's move on to our pan. I have a nine-inch tart pan here with a removable bottom. Just gonna put about two-thirds of this mixture right into the pan, and I wanna make sure it's evenly distributed. Before I start pressing it into place, it just means that I don't have to manipulate it quite as much, and it really is just mushing it into place. This is looking pretty great, nice and even. It doesn't have to be perfect. Now, I'm gonna crumble the rest of the dough kind of around the edges, just making sure that it's well-dispersed so that I don't run out as I'm pressing the sides into place. So this is ready to bake. I'm going to set this on a rimmed baking sheet, and we're gonna bake this in a 350-degree oven on the middle rack. It'll take about 20 minutes to become golden brown, and halfway through, I'm gonna give it a spin so it bakes evenly. So that's our crust, nice and golden brown. We're just gonna let this hang out and cool while we wrap up the filling. So it's been about an hour since we last looked at this, and it's cooled quite a bit. I'm actually looking for a specific temperature, 120 to 125 degrees. 121. Now, the reason I'm looking for that temperature is it means that this mixture's cooled enough that a skin has formed on top. I know we don't normally like skins on curds, but since it's still in the food processor, we can get rid of it so that it doesn't end up on our tart. I'm gonna use this opportunity to enrich it a little bit with four tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter. I'll just put this lid on and let it run for about 30 seconds. That's it. Ooh, so pretty. Yeah, because we're not using a ton of thickener, the cranberries' color really comes through too, which is great. So now I'm just gonna pour this through this fine mesh strainer, get rid of any bits of seed or skin that didn't get busted up. Now, before I go to fill that tart, I'm actually gonna reserve two tablespoons. So let's pour this into place. All right. So the crust is still warm. You can pour it into a fully cooled crust, a still warm crust, it's not gonna matter. So just give this a quick shake. Sometimes I will take a spatula to this to smooth it out, but this is fluid enough that I think that'll do. So this is gonna hang out for about four hours at room temperature. Last thing. I wanted to make a lightly flavored whipped cream for garnishing this. And to do that, I'm going to add a cup of heavy cream to our cranberry puree. And I'm gonna sweeten it with one tablespoon of sugar. Quick whisk. And I'm not looking to get soft peaks or anything here. I just wanna bring everything together. And I'm gonna pop this into the fridge so it gets nice and cold and it'll whip up into billowy peaks. And when we come back, we get to decorate. All right, so our tart is set. It's time to start decorating. I've got our cranberry whipped cream here, and I'm just gonna give this a quick whisk to take it to stiff peaks. I'm only gonna need half of this whipped cream for decorating the border of that tart. The rest of it, I'm just gonna put in a serving bowl. Now you could pipe any sort of decorative pattern you'd want on here. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a random pattern. I'm just gonna kind of not be too careful about making sure they're all the same size or that they're evenly spaced. Then I'm gonna come back and kind of fill in with smaller dots around the bigger ones. And I want to make sure that I'm working with just the outer maybe inch, inch and a half of the tart. I really think it's important to leave the center open so you can see that gorgeous, smooth tart. But that's it. That is absolutely stunning. So let's get this out of the ring. Before I pop it on the pedestal, I just want to make sure it's loosened from the bottom. Oh, the low bottom of the tart pan? Yeah. It's a little bit of insurance so that I don't have a tart kind of stuck in one spot. Ta-da. We're well past ta-da here. Firecrackers, everything. All right, let's do this. I hate making the first cut. It makes me so nervous after all of that. Look at that. So you get to have it all sliced and ready to go because you mentioned that whipped cream will hold up. Yeah, I've actually had this two, three days later and it looks as pristine as five seconds after I piped it. It's nicely set but it's still got a little tiny wobble to it so it's not rubbery at all. That will shake up any holiday table. Isn't it intense? Oh, they're tart. They're still tart. So this is not overly sweet at all but they just rolled over into that dessert territory. Oh my gosh. This is one of the best holiday desserts I have ever seen. Thank you. Thank her. You're definitely gonna want to make this. It is outstanding. And to make this show-stopping cranberry curd tart at home, cook cranberries with water and sugar to keep that cranberry flavor potent. Use a small amount of egg yolks and cornstarch to thicken the curd and pour that curd into a toasty almond crumb crust. Bring out your inner artist and decorate with whipped cream as you wish. So from America's Test Kitchen, a show-stopping spectacular alternative and now replacement to every holiday dessert out there, cranberry curd tart with almond crust. Cranberries never looked so good. Thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen. What'd you think? Well, leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello. You can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description. And don't forget to subscribe to our channel. See you later. I'll see you later.