If you were at the McCrae Avenue Farm Boy store in Ottawa last Saturday afternoon, and heard a high pitched squeal, that was me. For the past month I have been watching my instagram feed blow up with images of rhubarb creations. I wanted in on the fun, but there no rhubarb anywhere in my neck of the woods.
To be clear, this was not local rhubarb. It’s still too early for that here. It was that pretty pink “forced” rhubarb, which I love way more, because of that gorgeous hue. If you follow me on instagram you may have caught my teaser video.
Cooked rhubarb can be a bit mushy in texture, so I like to combine it with another fruit. Strawberries are the classic pairing, but I went rogue and opted for raspberries.
The rhubarb needs to be cooked before it can go into the tart. Roasting helps retain that pretty shade of pink. It needs sugar to tame the its astringency and some orange zest to enhance the flavour and aroma.
I drained the roasted rhubarb to get rid of any excess liquid, so that my tart bottom would not get soggy. Mary Berry does not like soggy bottoms. The raspberries get mixed in after the rhubarb is roasted.
I used a deep dish 8 inch tart pan, with a removable bottom, for a dramatic presentation. You could also use a springform pan. For fun, because that’s what my life has come to, I doubled the recipe and also made 6 mini tarts.
As has been the case lately, this recipe took more than one attempt to get it just right. But I am happy to report that I nailed it on the second try!
In my first attempt I pre-baked the crust for 20 minutes, added the filling, topped it with a simple French meringue and baked it for a further 30 minutes. The delicate raspberries turned to mush, the bottom crust was soggy and the meringue turned brown and was really tough and chewy.
On the second attempt I pre-baked the crust for almost 35 minutes, so that it was totally golden brown and gorgeously flaky and crispy. To solve the meringue dilemma, I turned to pastry wizard “Bravetart ” (aka Stella Parks) and she pointed me in the direction of a Swiss meringue. The main difference between the two types of meringue is that in a Swiss meringue, you heat the egg whites and sugar first, before whipping them. In a French meringue, there is no pre-heating before whipping. A Swiss meringue whips up fluffier and more stable than its French cousin and it is safe to eat without additional cooking time. If you are curious and want to learn more, Stella wrote a great piece on Serious Eats about it.
I topped the pre-baked tart shells with the rhubarb-raspberry filling, topped them with the Swiss meringue, and baked them for a brief 10 minutes just to give the meringue a golden kiss. The raspberries maintained their integrity and the meringue was pillowy soft, fluffy and SOOOOO delicious, like the very best homemade marshmallows.
Perfect with a cup of tea!
One of the most beautiful ways to showcase the glorious blood orange, is to make a curd. You can use the curd to fill a pie or tart, spread it between two cookies, sandwich it between cake layers, swirl it into ice cream, stuff it into donuts or cupcakes…. you get the idea. Curd is glorious and versatile.
For the meringue topping I looked to Stella Parks for advice. Her swiss meringue is foolproof. It whips up into a perfectly light, yet stable topping.
You could, of course, blanket the entire top with meringue, but I didn’t want to cover all that gorgeous orange curd, so I left some spots bare.
