A Cafloutis in a Crust: Cherry Custard Tart

I bought my last sour cherries of the season during the first week of July and decided to use them in a "Cherry Custard Tart" from The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox. The tart is essentially a cherry cafloutis, with sour cream added, baked in a buttery almond crust.

The crust is DeMasco's "Almond Sablé Dough," which is made in a mixer from chilled butter, powdered sugar, egg, egg yolk, flour, almond flour, and salt. I shaped the dough into a disc, chilled it, and then rolled it out fit it into a 10-inch fluted tart pan. After freezing the crust briefly, I blind baked it and cooled it completely.

Once the crust it ready, it's very easy to finish the tart. You arrange a single layer of pitted sour cherries in the tart shell (the recipe calls for 3 cups and I used 475 grams of fruit) and pour over a mixture of sour cream, egg, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and salt. You sprinkle on some sliced almonds and coarse sugar before putting the tart in the oven to bake.

I had a lot of filling and against my better judgment, I poured all of it into the tart shell. A bit sloshed over the side of the crust when I slid the pan into the oven (thankfully, I had put the tart pan on top of a baking sheet), and the filling overflowed the top of the crust in a few spots during baking. I was worried that the overflow custard might cause the tart to become stuck to the pan, but fortunately I didn't have any problems releasing the tart from the pan after it was cool.
The recipe says that you should take the tart out of the oven when the edges are set but the center is still a bit loose. I usually err on the side of overbaking when it comes to custard fillings, because I think a runny filling is the worst. My filling was nicely set and the tart slices held their shape. The firm, buttery crust was delicious and the juicy cherries in custard were bright and flavorful.
While I usually think of cafloutis as being primarily custard with fruit added, this tart was definitely mostly cherries with just enough custard to hold it together. And the custard probably was a bit overdone, but it was still creamy and tasted good. The sliced almonds on top provided a nice crunch. This tart was an elegant and crowd-pleasing dessert and I thought it was a fine way to finish out sour cherry season.

Recipes: "Cherry Custard Tart" and "Almond Sablé Dough" from The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox.

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