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Dessert

Barberry Tart

A tart made with barberries, sugar, water, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Barberry Tart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a dish with pastry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer ¾ pound barberries and 6 ounces sugar alternately.

  2. If the barberries are not quite ripe, add 2 ounces more sugar.

  3. Pour 3 tablespoons of water over the layered fruit and sugar.

  4. Cover the tart and bake for 30 minutes.

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

Barberries
Provide the tart's fruit filling and its sour, tangy flavour.
Fine brown sugar
Sweetens the barberries and draws out juice to form a syrup.
Pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling in the dish.

The step that matters

Adding extra sugar for unripe barberries. Barberries are naturally very tart, and unripe fruit has less natural sweetness. Checking ripeness and adding the extra sugar balances acidity so the filling does not taste sharp.

“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.

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