Rhubarb is one of my favorite summer ingredients and will eat it whenever I can, whether it be in a fancy liquid nitrogen gazpacho or swirled into cheesecake ice cream. When I found out it would be the main ingredient in this tart I was excited to get to use it. It has the most vibrant red hue.
There are four components in this tart so the recipe is about two days of prep.
Sablee crust– this is pre-baked in a quarter sheet pan and like with the Florentines recipe, I did not blind bake this. I simply docked the bottom of the crust, froze it overnight and baked it off. I did check on it half way through to see if it puffed and poked it if needed. I got it a nice dark golden color.
Cured rhubarb– I bought the rhubarb at Whole Foods a month ago because I wasn’t sure how long it would be around. Then I washed, peeled the extraneous fibers and froze the stalks. The curing process involves soaking the rhubarb in grenadine and granulated sugar for 24 hours. Then the rhubarb is drained on a towel before tart assembly.
Brown butter filling– I got to make my favorite thing in the world, brown butter and a generous 3/4 cup of it too. It was really runny and I couldn’t put it in a piping bag as stated in the recipe. I just poured it into the pan.
Toasted almond streusel– a crumbly mixture of almond flour, all purpose flour, sugar and butter that’s toasted. It’s absolutely delicious.
It was so awful having to wait to cut into the tart because the brown butter smell was intoxicating. The pan was still slightly warm when I went for a slice. Luckily the tart held together. The filling was set and the rhubarb was not watery because the liquid was drawn out during the curing process.
The rhubarb was a bit stringy but tender, slightly tangy and lovely with the brown butter filling which has almond flour so the tart reminds me of a frangipane tart. I really am glad I made the tart bottom nice and crisp because it was a good base to hold up the filling. Just before serving toasted almond streusel was sprinkled on top. Next time I might add the streusel to the tart right at the end of baking so it could stick. Really wonderful tart. It makes a quarter sheet pan size so it could feed 12 I’d imagine. It’s very rich.
Week 32 of the Bouchon Bakery Book Project
Read the Project recap on the Rhubarb Tart
Bake with us!