Spiced Cranberry Curd Tart

This lightly spiced Cranberry Curd Tart combines the bold, vibrant flavours of seasonal cranberries with warming cinnamon, ginger and cardamom spices within a graham cracker crust. A beautiful eye-catching tart to take centre stage for your holiday dessert table.

I'm a big fan of making tarts as I find them so eyecatching to look at and can hold such bold, full flavours. My Plum Frangipane Tart, Earl Grey Creme Brulee Tart and Roasted Grape Mascarpone Tart are some of the most popular recipes on my site.

This Spiced Cranberry Curd Tart Recipe comes from my friend Taylor Harbin's first cookbook, Pie All The Time. As the name suggests, it's a book filled with an endless supply of pie! Taylor delves into various forms of dough, many, new to me, which I find exciting. Her recipes span both sweet and savoury, across all the seasons and for any occasion. There is literally no excuse to not make pie!

This delectable Cranberry Tart is made with a graham cracker biscuit crust filled with warming ginger and cinnamon spices for elevated flavour. The cranberry curd filling is fragranced with orange, (such a beautiful pairing), and has aromatic ginger, cardamom and cinnamon for even more depth of flavour. It's well rounded, bold in cranberry flavour yet subtle in spices that complement the cranberry rather than overtake it. What a beautiful tart. Congratulations Taylor!

Oh, and let's talk about the colour of this tart! Truly magnificent. Red, luscious and bright like a Christmas ornament! The red currants felt like strings of red baubles across the tart and the pearl sugar looked like snow! With cranberries being the ultimate winter fruit, this tart pays homage to them with this queen of desserts! Move over Thanksgiving Apple Pie, its time for Festive cranberries to shine!

Tart crust

• Butter - Unsalted butter is melted and added to cracker crumbs as this becomes the binding agent in the base.
• Honey & molasses - Adds sweetness and richness. I would say that they join the butter in helping to ‘glue’ the cracker crumbs together to form the base.
• Graham cracker - An American staple within tart bases. I found these in an American Shop in London. However, digestive biscuits are the perfect substitute for those baking this outside of the States.
• Cinnamon, ground ginger & salt - Flavour enhancers! The cinnamon and ginger add the perfect spice to the base and the salt balances the sweetness of the honey.

Tart filling

• Cranberries -Taylor states that fresh or frozen cranberries can be used. If you use frozen, then thaw them before making the curd.
• Water - The water helps the cranberries to heat up in the saucepan and to cook until bursting.
• Orange juice & zest - Orange and cranberries are a perfect match. The sweetness helps balance the tartness from the cranberries.
• Cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods & fresh ginger - More spiced flavouring for the cranberry curd. They are added to the cranberries and discarded along with the pulp, but by then they’ve worked their magic! (Taylor's recipe adds cloves, but I didn't have any at the time of baking.)
• Sugar - Definitely needed to combat the tartness from the cranberries.
• Eggs - Only egg yolks are needed to create the curd but they form one of the main ingredients within any type of curd. When whisked with the sugar and then heated, they bind and add richness to the curd.
• Butter - A little unsalted butter is added right at the end of making the curd. It creates beautiful shine, adds flavour and richness.

Step-by-step instructions

The two main components of the recipe, in themselves, are relatively straightforward to make. The biscuit base is easily made in a food processor. The cranberries are heated up on the stovetop for them to soften before a basic curd is made. Then it's all baked together in under 20 minutes. The size of my pan was 2-inches smaller than Taylor used (as it's the largest one I had), but I found the cranberry layer to be just enough for my size pan.

To decorate: In Taylor's recipe, she decorates with honey whipped cream. As just mentioned, I used a smaller tart pan that she recommends, and found the layer of curd to be just enough. I personally would have preferred it to have more curd in the tart. I decided not to use the honey-whipped cream as I didn't want to overpower the thin layer of curd. So, I opted for just a small amount of whipped cream and pretty fruit to decorate.

*Be sure to see the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!*

Make the tart base

1. Melt the butter and add sweetness. First vital step when making the tart base. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. (Image 1) Taylor doesn’t state this in her recipe, but if you wanted to go one step further and brown the butter, the extra layer of flavour would be divine.

Add the honey and molasses into the butter and give it a good stir. The molasses is a thicker substance so tends to sink to the bottom. Don’t worry about this though. (Image 2)

Make cranberry curd filling

1. Cook cranberries. Time to cook down those cranberries to extract their maximum flavour. Add the cranberries, water, OJ and orange zest, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger in a saucepan and let everything heat up until at a simmer. Keep stirring and gradually the cranberries will start to pop and the fruit mixture will thicken. Use the back of a spoon to pop the cranberries too. (Image 7 & 8)

2. Whisk eggs and sugar. In a separate bowl add the yolks and sugar and whisk them for about 2 mins. Taylor doesn’t state whether by hand or not - it’s up to you. Obviously, by hand, it may take a bit longer. Admittedly, I used a handheld electric whisk. Regardless of how the eggs need to be thick and pale. (Image 9 & 10)

3. Extract the cranberry sauce. Pour the cranberries into a sieve set over a bowl. Use a spoon to push it all around to extract as much of the cranberry juice as possible. Lift the sieve up and make sure to scrape the cranberry mixture off the base. Discard the pulp.

4. Add back into the saucepan and make the curd. Add the cranberry sauce back into the saucepan (no need for a clean one) and add in the egg mixture. Give it a whisk whilst heating until at a gentle simmer. Cook until the curd has thickened and it coats the back of a spoon. This is a little trick to know that the eggs have cooked sufficiently. (Image 13 & 14)

5. Finish curd, add to a tart base and bake! Take the saucepan off the heat and add the butter. Stir it in until it's melted and combined in the curd. (Image 15) Pour the curd into the tart base and level with an offset spatula. (Image 16 & 17) Then bake! It doesn’t take long ... only for 12 minutes or so until the filling is set. (Image 18)

6. Decorate! Get creative. The cranberry tart is basically a blank canvas at this point. (But also is perfect eaten just like this. I used a small amount of whipped cream, red currants, sugared rosemary and pearl sugar.

Variations

I won't offer many variations that detract from the Cranberry Curd Tart as this isn't my recipe and I want to stay true to Taylor's recipe.

• Biscuit base: I suggested earlier that for UK bakers, to use digestive biscuits instead of the graham crackers. Gingersnap biscuits or biscoff biscuits would be equally delicious against the cranberry curd. Turn this into a gluten-free tart by making a hazelnut crust as done by NYT Cooking.
• Plain cranberry: If you wanted to omit the spices from the cranberry curd filling and the tart base, then by all means you can. I do believe they elevate the flavour of this tart but I think you would agree that it would be a shame to rule out making the tart for the sake of the spices. So you go as heavy with the spices as you like!!

Frequently asked questions

How to store and freeze

To store: Wrap cranberry tart in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Note that the crust will start to soften the longer it is kept. Also, if you've decorated the top of the cranberry tart with whipped cream, then the cranberry colouring will start to seep into the cream. 

To freeze: The crust can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrapped and frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature. The cranberry curd can be made, stored in a freezer-safe container and frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and continue on with the recipe.

Equipment you’ll need

• 10-inch Tart pan with removable base: In Taylor's book she uses a 12-inch tart pan. The largest I have is 10-inch so I went with that. In truth I would like to try this Cranberry Curd Tart next time in a 9-inch tart pan for a slightly thicker curd filling once baked in the base. That's just personal preference though!
• Heavy-based saucepan: Used to cook those cranberries in to make the cranberry sauce, and then to make the curd in.
• Fine-mesh seive: 100% needed to push the cranbe cranberries through to remove the pulp and spices.