Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Torta Cereza de Cayena (Surinam Cherry Tart)

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find a Surinam Cherry Hedge on our side yard.  Being sick for a couple of days and bored out of my mind, I needed to cook something.  Surinam Cherry Jam was what came to mind.



Decided to use a cranberry sauce recipe, because of the similarity of tartness in the fruit.  I added crystallized ginger, cinnamon and ground cardamon....yum!  So the recipe is about 2 cups of pitted Surinam Cherries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon crystallized ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon.  Boil all ingredients for about 20 minutes, cool and store in a glass container in the refrigerator.



I wanted to incorporate my Surinam Cherry Jam in a tart, so I experimented with a Surinam Strawberry Tart or in Spanish "Torta Cereza de Cayena".



Make a tart crust, I like using whole wheat flour because of the nuttiness of the whole wheat and of course it is better for you.  So the crust recipe is:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
3-6 tablespoons of ice water

Using a pastry knife, cut ice cold butter into the flour & salt mixture until the consistency of course meal.  Slowly add the ice water until you can form a dough ball with the mixture.  Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.  This recipe should make one large tart shell or two small tart shells.

Butter a large tart shell and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out chilled crust dough and form into tart pan.  Spread a thin layer of Surinam Cherry Jam on the bottom of the tart crust, then place sliced fresh strawberries over jam and pieces of fresh Surinam Cherries and spread another thin layer of Surinam Cherry Jam over strawberries & cherries.  Place tart pan on a cookie sheet and then in the center of the oven.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Cool tart for 30 minutes before slicing.



Serve with a scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt or ice cream.  Enjoy!