christmas cookies 2025 - GF orange and passionfruit shortbread creams

christmas cookies 2025 - GF orange and passionfruit shortbread creams

22 Dec 2025

I wasn't planning to post again before Christmas but after delivering this year's cookie boxes, a clear favourite emerged and it felt mean not to share the recipe with you. 

I tried out a few new recipes for this year's cookie box and none were a success so I returned to old favourites like these thumbprint cookies, an assortment of amaretti and glazed gingerbread.

Some of my friends can't eat nuts, so chocolate crinkle cookies and brown pumpkin snickerdoodles made their way into their cookie box, whilst others are gluten intolerant. In the end each cookie box contained a different selection. I posted some of the boxes to my interstate friends and in general the cookies arrived unscathed.

Here's what I made - hazelnut baci sandwiched with dark chocolate, thumbprint biscuits, sour cherry and pistachio amaretti, rum glazed gingerbread and chocolate crinkle cookies. The standout however were the orange and passionfruit shortbread creams, a reworking of an old Stephanie Alexander recipe for passionfruit shortbread I've made in the past. The recipe has been updated and adapted by Natalie Paull. 

I made 3 batches of the recipe for Christmas. I used reduced lemon juice matched with lemon rind for one batch; I used reduced orange juice with orange rind for another batch and strained passionfruit juice with lemon rind for the third batch and all were delicious. The cookies do spread during baking and more so when I used GF flour, so make sure you allow for this.

Here's the recipe for you which makes 12 sandwich biscuits, although the batch is easily multiplied. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Orange and passionfruit shortbread creams - makes 12
Ingredients
90g unsalted butter, softened
50g icing sugar mixture
Finely grated zest of 1 orange
30mls orange juice, regular or reduced (see below)
90g GF or regular self-raising flour, sifted
50g cornflour/cornstarch, sifted
¼ tsp sea salt flakes

Filling
30g room temperature unsalted butter
Pinch salt
75g icing sugar mixture
The pulp of 1 medium passionfruit

Reduced orange juice

Squeeze the zested orange and place the juice into an oversized plastic container as the juice will froth and bubble as it cooks. Place the container in the microwave and microwave the strained fruit juice on High(100%) heat in bursts of 2–3 minutes until the target amount of 30g has been reached. Refrigerate the juice until needed.

Method
Place butter, sugar and zest in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 8 minutes, or until fluffy. Add the orange juice and beat until combined. Sift over flours and add the salt flakes. Reduce speed to low and mix until combined and dough looks like a soft, thick paste. Working quickly, transfer mixture to a piping bag with a 1cm star nozzle. Do not let dough stand, or piping will be difficult.

Grease a large baking tray and line with baking paper. Pipe 24 swirls allowing room around each swirl for spreading and puffing. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

While the biscuits are in the fridge, preheat oven to 170°C, conventional. Bake for 15 minutes on the centre rack of the preheated 170°C, conventional oven or until golden on edges. Cool on tray for 15 minutes before placing on a cooling rack.

Passionfruit filling
Place butter in a bowl and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add the icing sugar mixture, then mix to combine. The mixture will be a bit thick. Add the passionfruit pulp and mix until well combined. If the filling is very soft return to the fridge for 10 minutes or so to firm.

Sandwiching
Match the shortbreads for size then place half the cooled swirls, bottom side up, on a clean tea towel and pipe (or spoon) a blob of the filling on each one. Sandwich with the top swirl and lightly press (with a little swirly wiggle) to bring the filling just flush with the biscuit edge. Swipe a finger around the edge to neaten any stray frosting. Chill for 15 minutes to set the filling before serving.

I'ts been quite a year for me, so l'll be taking a break from the blog for a few weeks. I'll see you all again some time in January.

I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers.

See you all again in 2026.

Bye for now,

Jillian 

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xmas week 2025 - fresh strawberry sponge cake with mascarpone mousse

xmas week 2025 - fresh strawberry sponge cake with mascarpone mousse

19 Dec 2025

For Xmas Week 2025, I thought I'd include a showstopper. I bookmarked a few cake recipes in 'Beatrix Bakes:Another Slice' by Natalie Paull, but ultimately I decided upon this one, the fresh strawberry sponge cake with mascarpone mousse as it's strawberry season in Sydney. The cake can be made with other in season berries or fresh figs.

The original recipe made an 8 inch layer cake and the cake layers were baked in a large rectangular 40 cm × 30 cm × 2 cm tin, then cut to size. I didn't have a rectangular tin large enough so I baked the cake in a smaller tin. The cake took a little longer to bake then I removed the brown edges from the still warm cake with a small sharp knife. Once the cake was cold, I then split it horizontally.

The filling needs to set overnight so you'll need to make the cake and the filling the day before you plan to serve it, then unmould and decorate just before serving. 

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make the 20cm cake, you can find the recipe here. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Fresh strawberry sponge cake with mascarpone mousse – 17cm
Buttersponge cake
35g unsalted butter
Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
45g full cream milk
25g egg yolk (from approx 1 egg)
80g egg whites (from approx. 3 eggs)
½ tsp vanilla paste
50g self-raising flour 
pinch salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
55g caster sugar

Filling
1 quantity mascarpone mousse
120g strawberry jam (homemade or very good store-bought). Match the jam to the berries used
250g fresh, perfectly ripe strawberries/raspberries or blackberries, washed and hulled

Mascarpone mousse
150g good quality white chocolate finely chopped 
185g mascarpone
265g cream (35% fat)
6g titanium strength gelatine leaves + cold water
113g full cream milk
½ tsp vanilla paste
teeny pinch of fine sea salt

Strawberry sherbet dust – this makes more than you need
20g icing sugar
5g freeze-dried strawberries
¼ tsp citric acid

Cake
Preheat the oven to 170°C, conventional. Grease and flour a deep 17cm round tin and line the base with baking paper. 

Place the butter and lemon zest in a small saucepan over a medium–high heat and cook until the butter is sunshine yellow with white milk solids on the base. When cooked, pour the yellow butter into a wide mixing bowl, leaving the white solids behind, and immediately add the milk to cool the mixture down quickly. Hand whisk in the egg yolk and vanilla. 

Weigh the flour and salt into a small bowl and set aside with a sieve on top.
Put the egg white and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, whip on speed 6 (medium–high) for 1–2 minutes, until the whites have changed from foamy to stiff and white. Start adding the sugar to the whites very gradually – about 1 heaped teaspoon every 20 seconds, so the whole process takes 3–4 minutes. It is imperative to the success of the cake that the meringue is so stiff you could carve a knife through it. After all the sugar is in, reduce to speed 1 (low) for 1 minute to even out the air bubbles. 

Sift the dry ingredients over the butter/milk/yolk mix and whisk in by hand to make a smooth paste, then gently and thoroughly fold in one-third of the meringue. Gently fold in the remaining meringue and do a final fold with a plastic spatula until no white streaks remain. Scrape the mixture into the tin and smooth the top, making a recess in the centre to control doming. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is pale gold. While the cake bakes, set up a cooling rack on your work surface and spray it with cooking oil. As soon as the cake is done, quickly run a knife along the unpapered sides and confidently flip the cake from the tin onto the cooling rack. Gently peel away the paper and set the rack over your sink (or carefully elevate) to get maximum cooling airflow beneath. 

While the cake cools, start the white chocolate and mascarpone mousse so it is still pourable when you reach assembly time. 

Mascarpone mousse filling
Beat the mascarpone and cream to soft slumpy peaks then refrigerate until needed. 

Soften the gelatine leaves in enough cold water to just cover them, and leave until the gelatine feels like soggy cling wrap. While it softens, heat the milk, vanilla and salt in a small saucepan until you get a bubbly boil across the entire surface. Squeeze out the gelatine leaves and add to the hot milk. Stir until dissolved. 

Place the chopped white chocolate into a medium bowl and pour over the milk mixture. Whisk to melt the chocolate. If it’s stubborn, heat in the microwave in 30 sec bursts until the chocolate has melted. Cool the mix at room temperature to around 23-25°C. Every 5 minutes or so, gently whisk and scrape down the side of the bowl with a flexible plastic spatula. Do this until the mix begins to set. This should take around 10–20 minutes – less time in colder weather and more when it’s 36⁰C! Gently fold the cooled chocolate mixture and chilled cream together.

Assembly 
While the cake cools, lightly spray the deep 17-cm round cake tin with oil spray, then line with baking paper. Invert the cooled cake onto a work surface and remove the baking paper, then carefully scrape off the browned cake edges with a sharp paring knife. Split the cake horizontally. Divide the strawberry jam between the two sponge cakes, spreading to the edges of the cake.

Place one round sponge cake into the lined cake tin, jam-side up. Pour in half of the mascarpone mousse mixture, then smooth out and tap lightly. Place the strawberries in concentric circles – “top to tail”. Pour over the remaining mascarpone mousse and gently shake to ensure it fills in the gaps of the strawberries. Flip the second sponge circle on top, jam-side down. Cover the cake with plastic wrap, then sit a flat plate (or tart tin base) on top with a weight on top (like a block of butter). Chill for at least 4 hours but overnight is best before unmoulding.

Strawberry sherbet dust
Place all the ingredients into a small food processor, blitz the ingredients to a powder.

To serve
Just before serving, peel the plastic wrap back to expose the cake. Place the serving platter on top, then invert onto the serving platter. Remove the tin and gently peel away the paper. 

Just before serving, sift a snowdrift of sherbet dust over the top of the cake, as the sherbet dust will liquefy a little when chilled and uncovered. Cut into wedges to serve.

Natalie can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. She gently holds you hand as you make one of her recipes and if you follow her instructions, all will end well. This was a beautiful cake in every sense of the word

That was my final bake for Christmas week 2025. I was planning to post again on Monday but I'm not sure that I will.

For those of us who live in Sydney, the past week has been challenging and I'm still trying to come to terms with what took place in my own backyard.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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xmas week 2025 - passionfruit posset flower tarts

xmas week 2025 - passionfruit posset flower tarts

18 Dec 2025

Welcome to Day 4 of Xmas Week 2025. Christmas is peak passionfruit season in Australia so when I saw a photo of these sweet little passionfruit topped tarts in Nicola Lamb's cookbook, Sift, I immediately added them to my Xmas folder.

The recipe isn't particularly complicated but it does involve a number of steps. The pastry shells, passionfruit juice and white chocolate ganache can be prepared in advance. The passionfruit posset needs a few hours to set before you can decorate the tarts so remember to factor that in if you're planning to serve these for Christmas lunch. 

Don't make the rookie mistake I made and use regular cream for the posset because you'll end up with a very loosely set posset. On a warm Sydney day the posset pretty much melted in the heat as I photographed the tarts. I'd made a few extra tart shells, so I bought some double cream and I remade the passionfruit posset. The second batch of posset set up nicely in under 2 hours.

Here's the recipe for you which makes six 8cm tarts. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Passionfruit posset flower tarts 

Tart cases
45g icing sugar, sifted 
165g plain flour
15g ground almonds
pinch flaky sea salt

100g cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks

1 egg yolk 

Whipped vanilla ganache
300g thickened cream 
1½ tsp good quality vanilla bean paste
Pinch of fine salt
120g white chocolate, finely chopped

Posset
30g passionfruit juice (about 3 passionfruit)
10g lime juice
200g double cream (48% fat)
60g caster sugar
40g butter
1g flaky sea salt (about 1/4 tsp)

Plus
2-3 passionfruit, to serve

Pastry
Mix the dry ingredients together in the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and pulse a few times to break up the butter into pea sized pieces. Add the egg folk and mix until a dough forms around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and knead lightly a few times to bring the dough together. Wrap in plastic then refrigerate the pastry for 1 hour.

Roll out the soft pastry between two sheets of baking paper to a 4mm thickness. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes until firm. 

Have your six 8cm tart tins handy. Trim the pastry so it is larger than the tart tin you are lining. For small tart cases, you may want to use a circular pastry cutter. 

Remove the paper and drape the pastry into the tart tin, gently pressing it into the edges and base. Place the lined tart tins into the freezer until the pastry is firm, around 30 minutes, or in the fridge for an hour.

To blind bake
Preheat the oven to 190°C conventional/170°C fan. Place foil dull side down in your chilled and lined tarts. Fill with weights - baking beans, sugar or raw rice work well. Place the tart shells onto a baking sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes on the centre rack until dry, then remove the weights and bake for another 5-10 minutes until golden. Take the tart shells from the oven and place on a cooling rack

The baked tart cases can be kept in an airtight container for 3 days. Refresh in a 180°C conventional/160°C fan oven for 5-10 minutes before using.

Vanilla ganache

Heat the cream with the vanilla and salt until simmering. Pour this over the white chocolate and whisk until smooth. Pour into a container and leave to chill completely.

To juice the passionfruit for the posset, spoon out the flesh, discard the seeds and place into a blender. Blitz until liquefied, then pass through a fine sieve to remove any seeds.

Passionfruit posset

Juice the passionfruit by spooning out the flesh, then placing the pulp into the bowl of a small food processor. Blitz until liquefied, then pass through a fine sieve to remove any seeds. Mix the passionfruit and lime juices  together and set aside. 

Heat the cream and sugar together, then continue to simmer for 3 minutes to ensure the sugar is fully dissolved. Turn off the heat, then whisk in the juice, followed by the butter and salt. Pour this mixture into the tart cases, about 50g per case, and put into the fridge to chill completely, around 2 hours.

To finish

Whip the ganache until soft peaks form, being careful not to over-whip. This can take less than a minute in a stand mixer on a medium speed. Either spoon blobs on top of each tart or transfer into a piping bag and cut a large 1.5cm hole or fit with a round tip. Pipe blobs around the edge of the tart cases. Add a spoonful of passionfruit pulp into the middle of each.

These tarts are best enjoyed on the day they are made but can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days, though the tart cases will soften.

Yes they are a bit fiddly to make but Christmas comes but once a year. Not only are the passionfruit posset flower tarts pretty to look at, they taste just as good as they look.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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xmas week 2025 - apple galette with halva frangipane

xmas week 2025 - apple galette with halva frangipane

17 Dec 2025

Welcome to Day 3 of Xmas Week 2025. I do love a frangipane tart but when I spied a tahini version this year I was intrigued. Then I discovered this Susan Spungen halva variation and with an unopened packet of halva in my pantry, I was sold. 

When Susan made her galette she used a shortcrust pastry base but I decided to make a puff pastry version. As a technical exercise I made my own puff pastry but I beg of you, please don't. At Christmas time it's false economy spending time rolling, folding and chilling pastry when you can buy excellent puff pastry like Careme.

Whilst this galette is best made on the day, putting the whole thing together shouldn't take you too long if you buy the puff pastry. The frangipane and the glaze can be prepared in advance. The apples can be sliced ahead of time and placed into a bowl of water and lemon juice to stop them browning then just dried on a tea towel before assembling the tart.

I can't tell you how good this smells coming out of the oven. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere for Christmas, serve the tart warm with cream while if you're in the Southern Hemisphere cold with cream is the way to go.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 23 x 32cm galette which should serve 8. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C. 

Apple galette with halva frangipane

One 27 x 36cm sheet of all butter puff pastry or a half batch of home made wholewheat puff pastry

Halva frangipane 
100g plain halvah, finely crumbled 
25g very soft unsalted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
15g light brown sugar
25g plain flour
½ tsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

Filling
2 medium apples 
25g unsalted or salted butter, melted
30g raw sugar

 
Glaze
2 tbs apricot jam
1 tbs boiling water

To serve

Thick cream

Method

Frangipane
Combine all of the ingredients in a small food processor and mix until well blended. Chill until needed.

Assembly
Place an upturned baking tray onto the centre rack of the oven then preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional. Line a second baking sheet with baking paper. 

If you've made your own puff pastry, lightly flour the work surface and roll out the dough into a 27 by 36cm rectangle then transfer the dough rectangle to the prepared baking sheet. Brush water around the edge of the pastry then make a border by folding in the edges. To make a decorative edge, crimp the dough by pressing down with the tines of a fork. Prick the base of the dough about 25 times with the fork to prevent it from puffing up whilst baking.

Spread the halva frangipane over the dough. Peel, quarter, and core the apples, and cut them into 1/4-inch (6-mm) slices. Arrange the apple slices in overlapping rows over the frangipane-covered pastry. Brush the apples with the melted butter and sprinkle the apples and the crust with the raw sugar. 

Place the galette onto the preheated tray and bake until the apples are tender and beginning to brown, about 35-45 minutes. 

While the tart bakes, prepare the glaze. Place the jam and water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil for 30 seconds, then remove from the heat. 

When the tart is ready, slide it off the baking paper and onto a wire rack. While still warm, glaze the tart with the apricot jam then cut the tart into squares and serve with generous spoonfuls of cream.

The tart is best served the day it's made but it can be kept covered in the fridge overnight.

I can't tell you how good this smelt coming out of the oven. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere for Christmas, serve the tart warm topped  with cream while if you're in the Southern Hemisphere cold with cream is the way to go. 

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas Week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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xmas week 2025 - chocolate raspberry tim tam tart

xmas week 2025 - chocolate raspberry tim tam tart

16 Dec 2025

Welcome to Day 2 of Xmas week 2025. I made this chocolate raspberry tim tam tart for last year's Christmas work lunch, and it was a big hit. I didn't have time to photograph the tart at the time, so the recipe went straight into my Xmas week 2025 folder.

It's been a hot lead into Christmas this year and the beauty of this tart is that it's a no-bake recipe. The base is made from Tim Tam biscuits or an equivalent chocolate coated and filled biscuit, then it's filled with raspberry jam and a dark chocolate ganache. To gild the lily, the tart is topped with clouds of whipped cream, some berries and chocolate biscuit crumbs. If berries aren't in season where you live you can leave them out or perhaps make a compote from frozen berries to serve on the side.

The tart is a mash up of 2 recipes. The base came from a New Idea magazine recipe whilst the filling is a Claire Saffitz recipe. The tart can be made up to two days ahead and will keep, covered, in the fridge. Bring the tart out about an hour before serving so it comes  to room temperature then decorate the tart just before serving.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 13 x 35cm tart which should serve 7-8 people. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate raspbery tim-tam tart
Base 
2 x 200g packet Tim Tam biscuits or equivalent (you won't use all the biscuits)
50 g unsalted butter, melted
Pinch sea salt flakes

Filling 
170g finely chopped dark chocolate (64-70%) 
Pinch sea salt flakes
300mls cold thickened cream, divided into 180mls and 120 mls
60g unsalted butter
¼ cup raspberry jam

To serve
300 mls thickened cream, softly whipped
1 punnet raspberries or other berries
reserved chocolate biscuit crumbs
chocolate shards (optional)

Method
Grease a 13cm x 35cm rectangular, loose-base flan tin and line the base with baking paper. Process 17 of the biscuits in a food processor until finely crushed. Transfer the crumbs to a large bowl reserving 1 tbs for decoration. Stir in the melted butter and the salt flakes, then press the mixture over the base and up sides of the prepared tin. Refrigerate while making filling. 

Filling
In a large heatproof bowl, combine the chopped chocolate and a generous pinch of salt and set aside. In a small saucepan, heat 180mls of the cream over medium heat just until you see gentle bubbling around the sides. Remove the saucepan from the heat and set it aside for 30 seconds to cool slightly, then pour it over the chocolate. Cut the butter into 1 cm pieces and add to the bowl. Let the chocolate mixture sit undisturbed for about 5 minutes to allow the chocolate to melt. Whisk the ganache gently, starting in the centre of the bowl and working outward, until the mixture is completely smooth. Place the bowl in the fridge for about 10 minutes while you whip the cream.

In a medium bowl, with a hand mixer, whip the remaining 120mls cream on low speed then gradually increase the speed to medium-high as it thickens, until you have medium peaks. Set the bowl aside.

Beat the ganache with the hand mixer (no need to wash after whipping the cream) on low speed and gradually increase the speed to medium-high until the ganache thickens and holds the marks of the whisk. (This could take up to 8 minutes so I used a stand mixer for this step). Add the whipped cream and gently fold through the ganache until the mixture is streak-free. 

To assemble
Remove the tart shell from the tin and transfer to a serving plate. Spoon the raspberry jam over the base, followed by the whipped ganache. Using an offset spatula, smooth the surface working it to the sides in an even layer. Set the uncovered tart aside until the filling has set, then refrigerate.

Bring the tart out of the fridge about 30 minutes to 1 hour before serving time to allow the filling to soften a little. Decorate the tart with dollops of cream, the berries, the chocolate biscuit crumbs and chocolate shards if using. 

This is the perfect dessert for an Australian Christmas. The tart can be made in advance then decorated on the day and best of all, no oven!

See you all again tomorrow with the another bake for Xmas week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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xmas week 2025 - sour cherry almond tart

xmas week 2025 - sour cherry almond tart

15 Dec 2025

Welcome to Xmas Week 2025. If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've made loads of sour cherry items this year and for good reason. Sour cherries are delicious. 

Last year I borrowed a copy of Tarts Anon by Gareth Whitton where I found his cherry almond tart recipe. As you know I like to make recipes my own, so I came up with my own verison. The pastry recipe is my own. The brown butter filling was inspired by Natalie Paull from Beatrix Bakes and the sour cherry technique came from Gareth Whitton of Tarts Anon. 

I take my research very seriously so I've made this tart twice now, just to make sure the recipe was perfect and it is. You can make the tart the day before serving, just store it in an airtight container at room temperature.

Here's the recipe for you which makes a 17cm tart. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Sour cherry almond tart – inspired by a Gareth Whitton recipe

Almond shortcrust pastry
¼ cup icing sugar
¼ cup almond meal
1⅓ cups plain flour
Pinch salt
110g (4 oz) cold unsalted butter, diced
1 egg, lightly beaten
Cold water

Sour cherries
1 680g jar of sour cherries
caster (superfine) sugar, see method
citric acid, see method

Frangipane Filling
120g unsalted room temperature butter
100g caster sugar
1 tsp finely grated orange zest 
2 room temperature eggs 
110g almond meal
2g fine sea salt 
2 tbs plain flour 
20g dark rum or orange juice
5g vanilla paste

To decorate

fresh cherries (optional)

icing sugar

Pastry
To make the pastry, combine all the dry ingredients in a food processor, and whiz for a few seconds until well combined and free of lumps. Add the cold butter and whiz until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and sufficient cold water and whiz until a soft dough just starts to form around the blade. Remove the dough from the food processor and gather the pastry into a ball; flatten slightly before wrapping in plastic and placing in the fridge. You’ll only need about half of the pastry dough to make a 17cm tart. The pastry freezes well so just wrap the remaining pastry in plastic wrap and store in the freezer. 

Refrigerate the pastry for an hour and then roll out thinly - 4mm thick. Line a greased 17 cm flan tin with the pastry then return to the fridge for another 30 minutes.

Sour cherries
Strain the sour cherries from the jar, reserving the liquid. For every 100g of the cherry liquid, measure out 60g of caster sugar and 2g of citric acid. Add the sugar and citric acid to a saucepan with the cherry liquid, bring to a simmer over medium heat, then stir together to ensure the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. (This can also be done with the same amount of fresh pitted cherries by replacing the cherry liquid with water and poaching the de-seeded cherries in the syrup until they are soft.) Pour this liquid over the jarred cherries and let sit in the syrup for at least 3-4 hours before using.

Frangipane Filling
Start the frangipane by cooking half (60g) of the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until it turns a foamy tan brown. Scrape it into the bowl of an electric stand mixer to cool for 15 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional and place a heavy baking sheet on the middle shelf. 

Add the remaining butter, sugar and orange rind with the browned butter to the bowl of an electric stand mixer. With the paddle attachment, beat the ingredients on medium for about 8 minutes until the mix is pale and fluffy. Scrape the bowl down with a stiff plastic spatula twice during this.  Add the eggs in two additions, allowing the creamed base to re-fluff up between additions. If the creamed mixture separates from the temperature difference of too fast egg addition, just keep going, it will be dense but still delicious.

Weigh the almond meal and salt, stir through the flour and set aside. Stop the mixer and scrape the mix off the paddle attachment. We are working by hand and using a stiff plastic spatula now. Add the rum or orange juice and the vanilla and mix well. Tip in the almond meal and salt and stir thoroughly.

 

To assemble and bake
Pour a thin layer of almond batter (about one-third of the quantity) into the prepared pastry shell to cover the base. (This will keep the cherries in place when adding the remaining batter). Then, strain off 100 g of the marinated sour cherries (see previous page) through a sieve and discard the liquid. Blot the fruit on some paper towels, then arrange them over the batter in three concentric circles, with a gap of roughly ½ cm in between each circle and in between each cherry.

Pour the remaining batter over the top of the cherries, stopping about ½ cm from the top of the pastry and push any floating cherries under the surface. Place the tart into the oven to bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until the crust is an even golden brown and the centre of the tart is firm. 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool inside the tin. Once the cake layer has completely cooled, remove the tart from the tin. 

If you like you can gild the lily by crowning the tart with some fresh cherries. Otherwise to serve, portion into slices and dust with a light coating of icing sugar. A dollop of cream to serve with the tart is optional but it would be a nice touch.

See you all again tomorrow with another bake for Xmas Week 2025.

Bye for now,

Jillian

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