Over the years I have occasionally seen beautiful fresh red currants at the farmers market during a very brief window of time in the summer, but I never bought them before. This year I decided it was time to try a red currant baking project. Luisa Weiss has a recipe for Träbelestorte (Redcurrant Meringue Torte) in Classic German Baking that is comprised of a "cakey crust filled with an almond meringue studded with recurrants." Weiss says that if you have redcurrants, "this torte is practically the best thing you can make with them."
I bought a mix of red currants, white currants, and pink champagne currants. I know that currants are tart, but also that the white and pink varieties are supposed to be sweeter than the red. The fruit always comes still attached to the stem, and now I know why. Fresh currants look so pristine in their punnets at the market but after I washed the currants and tried to de-stem them, I realized that the connection to the stem is surprisingly strong and the currants are quite delicate. I squashed a non-trivial number of currants just trying to pull them off of the stem.
The crust for this torte is sort of a mix between a cake and a cookie. To make it, you mix flour and baking powder; form a well in the middle and pour in sugar, salt, and an egg; mix the ingredients together with a fork; and incorporate chunks of softened high-fat butter by hand until the mixture is uniform. You chill the dough for at least an hour before rolling it out and fitting it into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan (I used a cheesecake pan with a removable bottom). You fill the raw crust with a meringue mixture made by whipping egg whites until tripled in volume; adding sugar; and folding in almond flour and currants. You bake the filled torte in a hot oven (400 degrees) until the the filling is browned and dry to the touch.
As you can see from the photo below, the top of my torte was not just browned, but actually slightly burned when I first checked it. I pressed on the top of the torte with my finger and it was both dry and very firm, so I pulled it out of the oven. I sliced it after it was completely cooled and was puzzled that the inside looked damp (although the photo of the torte that Luisa Weiss published on her blog also looks somewhat wet inside -- but I can't tell if the moisture is in the meringue itself, or is seeping out from her redcurrants, some of which seem to have burst). I'm still not certain whether my torte was undercooked or not.
I did not care for this torte. The wet texture was odd and the filling didn't have much flavor aside from the fruit. I wasn't expecting a crispy meringue, but I guess I was expecting something more like a lightweight cake. This was nothing like cake. The seeds of the currants were hard and the sensation of eating a currant reminded me a lot of the texture of a pomegranate aril. There was really not much in this torte that I found appealing. Currant season is over now, but who knows -- I might give the fruit another try in the future!
Recipe: "Träbelestorte (Redcurrant Meringue Torte)" from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss.
I bought a mix of red currants, white currants, and pink champagne currants. I know that currants are tart, but also that the white and pink varieties are supposed to be sweeter than the red. The fruit always comes still attached to the stem, and now I know why. Fresh currants look so pristine in their punnets at the market but after I washed the currants and tried to de-stem them, I realized that the connection to the stem is surprisingly strong and the currants are quite delicate. I squashed a non-trivial number of currants just trying to pull them off of the stem.
The crust for this torte is sort of a mix between a cake and a cookie. To make it, you mix flour and baking powder; form a well in the middle and pour in sugar, salt, and an egg; mix the ingredients together with a fork; and incorporate chunks of softened high-fat butter by hand until the mixture is uniform. You chill the dough for at least an hour before rolling it out and fitting it into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan (I used a cheesecake pan with a removable bottom). You fill the raw crust with a meringue mixture made by whipping egg whites until tripled in volume; adding sugar; and folding in almond flour and currants. You bake the filled torte in a hot oven (400 degrees) until the the filling is browned and dry to the touch.
Recipe: "Träbelestorte (Redcurrant Meringue Torte)" from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss.
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