Name: Cherry Tart
Ingredients: ½ lb. cherries; 2 tablespoons moist sugar; ½ lb. short crust pastry

Cherry Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

½ lb. cherries
2 tablespoons moist sugar
½ lb. short crust pastry

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Remove the stems from the cherries and place them in a deep pie dish with the sugar.
Insert a small cup upside down in the center of the cherries.
Make short crust pastry with ½ lb of flour and line the edges of the dish.

Bake and serve

Cover the cherries with the pastry and decorate the edges.
Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 to 40 minutes.
Sprinkle finely sifted sugar on top and serve hot or cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cherries: Provide the fruit filling, with juices that soften and sweeten during baking.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the cherries and helps draw out juices to form a syrup.
Short crust pastry: Forms a crisp, buttery crust that encloses the fruit and browns in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.