I love Valentine's Day and hearts. Jack and I were married on Valentine's Day, quite a few years ago. It's this time of year when I make heart-shaped foods and foods made red with: cherries, dried cranberries, tomatoes or any other way I can get the color red into a meal. I recently ran across this Italian Almond Tart recipe just before the holidays and have made it a couple of times since then.
The "red" in this tart is in form of cherry jam. Buy the reddest one you can find. I found the Stonewall Kitchen brand to be the reddest.
There is a can of almond paste in this recipe too. Almonds and cherries are delicous together, don't you think?
What I like about this tart, is that it is really easy to make, tastes great and is easy to serve. I baked a couple of them one night last week and brought them to work the next day to celebrate Kristen's (our Assistant Food Editor) birthday.
I made a tiny change or two to the recipe. Instead of making a scratch crust, I used 1 Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crust. Line the tart pan with a crust and cover it with parchment paper. Over the parchment paper, put some pie beans or rice. Bake at 425° for about 10 minutes. Remove parchment and beans and bake an additional 3 to 4 minutes or until center of crust is light golden brown.
The second change I made was to increase the amount of jam from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup and stirred about 1/8 teaspoon almond extract into it.
I took quick shot of the inside of one of the tarts before every piece was all gone--and, they went fast! We served each slice with a dollop of whipped cream.