Cranberry Crackle Tart - Tuesdays with Dorie - Baking Chez Moi

Cranberry Crackle Tart

This tart is the reason I love Tuesdays with Dorie.

It has meringue.

You might think I'm excited about the recipe because I love meringue.

But it's quite the opposite. I hate meringue. (It's this sweet, sticky cloud that gets in the way of the lemon filling in a lemon meringue pie). And that's why this group is awesomesauce.

Tuesdays with Dorie makes you bake things outside your taste and comfort zone. If you know me, you know my comfort zone is Bundt cakes, scones, muffins, and Jello. Never, ever meringue. But since this is Recipe #2 of Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking Chez Moi edition, it was time to settle in and get those eggs to room temperature to whisk, whisk, whisk!

By the way, I'm so excited to see so many friendly faces from the first round of Tuesdays with Dorie!! This is a fun baker's reunion! And I'm looking forward to meeting the new faces too! :)

First, you make sweet tart dough and put it into the tart shell or pie tin. Um, I seem to have moved my rolling pin someplace very very safe and secret...and can't seem to find it. So, garbanzo beans to the rescue! Yes, I was even too lazy to get out the step stool to grab the bottle of vodka on the top shelf of the cabinet!

Dorie reveals her new technique - that I LOVE. Instead of making the dough, forming into a disc and chilling it for a couple hours, THEN rolling it out (which is a pain because it is hard and cold).... Dorie now makes the dough, forms it into a disc and rolls it out between sheets of parchment paper while still soft! Brilliant! She does chill the dough in the pie or tart shell before baking or using it.

I made a 4" tart and a few mini tarts (I used 1/2 a recipe of sweet tart dough). I did make a two egg white meringue and tossed some of it because I know it is difficult to whip up just one egg white - at least two eggs work better.

A layer of jam is placed at the bottom of the shell and the meringue with cranberries it layered on top.

My tart shells got a little too brown, but they were tasty!


The tart bakes at 300 degrees for an hour (mine baked for less time because they were smaller).

I'm not sure if this is how the meringue is supposed to turn out. The crackle top was tasty, but, as I said before, not a fan of the meringue so I didn't care for the eggy middle. I did enjoy the added cranberries - that was a tart treat amid all that meringue.

The mini minis had very little eggy meringue inside and were mostly crackle crunch (so I liked them best!).

We aren't publishing the recipes on Tuesdays with Dorie...but this recipe happens to be online at The Splendid Table and on Dorie's website.

Check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers and their creations here!

Happy Thanksgiving! - mary the food librarian