Rustic Cherry Tart
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Bake fresh cherry filling on top of this easy 5-minute pie dough, and you’ve got yourself delicious cherries for dessert that any novice baker can master — let me present Rustic Cherry Tart!
I’m in love with Summer fruit pies, especially free-form rustic tarts, also known as galettes. You can make them with homemade or refrigerated pie dough. The best part is there’s no fuss trying to fit the crust into a pie pan and you don’t have to worry about making perfectly crimped edges.
With this Rustic Cherry Tart recipe, you simply roll out the dough, layer on the filling, and fold the dough over the fruit and bake. Truly, it is easy as pie!
Whoever coined that phrase must have known about my favorite 5-minute pie dough! (Minus the chilling time, of course.)
Rustic Cherry Tart
You don’t have to be a pastry chef or expert at forming perfect pie crusts because the free-form crust is what makes this tart rustic — and charming, too, right? Fresh sweet Bing cherries in a buttery crust — how can you beat that?
You could make this tart with a store-bought refrigerated pie dough, but making it fresh is really so much better.
The first time I made this pie dough, I was amazed at how quickly it came together and how easy it was to make. If I can do it, I know you can, too!
Life is just a bowl of cherries
Don’t take it serious; it’s too mysterious!
Making the pie dough
No matter what pie dough recipe you use, always remember two things: COLD butter and ICE water.
Why? Using cold butter and ice water in the dough helps ensure the butter doesn’t start to melt as you are prepping the dough. And little bits of butter in the dough make a flaky crust in the end.
Putting the butter in the freezer for a few minutes before you mix up the pie dough is a good idea, too.
- Place the flour, salt, and sugar into the bowl of a food processor and pulse just a few times to blend it up.
- Cut the butter into small pieces and sprinkle over the top of the flour mixture.
- Pulse a few seconds — just until the butter is slightly broken into the flour, but still in visible pieces.
- Sprinkle the ice water over the flour mixture and process just until the dough starts to come together. Don’t over do it!
- Dump the dough into a gallon-size ziplock plastic bag and seal the top. Gently press the dough together in the bag to form a flat disc, being careful again not to over do it so the dough doesn’t warm up from the heat in your hands.
- Place the disc in the refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.
- When you are ready to assemble the tart, roll the dough out on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper into a 14-inch circle. Transfer the parchment paper to a baking sheet and layer with the tart filling.
Cherry tart filling
Unlike some cherry pies, the filling for this tart doesn’t need to be cooked before baking the tart. Here’s all you need to do:
- Remove the pits from fresh cherries and place the cherries in a bowl.
- Add sugar, cornstarch, and a squeeze of lemon juice, and toss until the cherries are coated.
- Spoon the cherries onto the pie dough, leaving about 2 inches around the perimeter.
- Fold the edges of dough over the cherries, overlapping to form the tart “shell”.
- Brush the dough with an egg wash and bake until golden.
What cherries are best for baking?
My favorite cherries for this recipe are fresh Bing sweet cherries. They don’t require a lot of extra sugar which means the filling doesn’t get too watery and make the crust soggy.
Also, don’t add the sugar to the fruit until JUST before you’re ready to assemble the tart to avoid extra juices releasing.
To make this recipe, you may need…
Creating a tart does take a little effort, but it’s really easy with the right kitchen tools. I use my food processor to easily prep my pie crust and love this OXO Cherry pitter — it’s one of my very favorite kitchen gadgets!
More cherry dessert recipes!
Fresh summer cherries are the best for making delicious desserts! Here are a few I think you may enjoy:
- Cherry Cobbler
- Cherry Chocolate Chunk Bread
- Cherry Cake with Buttermilk Powdered Sugar Glaze
- Cherry Pot Pies
- Chocolate Chip Cherry Bars
- More dessert recipes!
Let’s bake!
I love that this crust is mixed in a food processor and then dumped into a large zip lock bag and chilled. By placing the dough in the bag, you can squeeze it into a disc without getting messy hands — no fuss and no mess!
Also, you may enjoy trying this tart recipe with other fruit, like peaches, blueberries, or apples. Enjoy!
Rustic Cherry Tart
Ingredients
Cherry Filling
- 1 lb. sweet cherries ~ 3 cups – halved and pitted
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Finishing
- 1 egg white
- ½ teaspoon water
- ½ tablespoon sugar
Pie Dough
- 1- ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 7 tablespoons cold butter cut into cubes
- 5 tablespoons ice water (plus more if needed
Instructions
- Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, into a 14 inch circle. Transfer the parchment and dough onto a baking sheet.
- Pit and slice the cherries in half. Place in a large bowl and toss with the 1/3 cup sugar, the cornstarch and lemon juice until evenly coated. Pour fruit onto the center of the dough and spread out to within 2 inches of the edge.
- Fold up the edges over the fruit. Make an egg wash by whisking together the egg white and 1/2 teaspoon water with a fork. Brush the pastry with the egg wash and sprinkle evenly with 1/2 tablespoon sugar.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour, or until filling is bubbly and crust is golden brown. Cool completely before slicing.
Pie Dough
- Place flour, salt, and sugar into a food processor and pulse a few times until blended. Sprinkle the butter over the top and pulse just until the butter is slightly broken into the flour but still in visible pieces. Sprinkle the ice water over the flour mixture and process just until the mixture starts to come together.
- Dump the dough into a gallon-size lock-top plastic bag, and press into a flat disk. Refrigerate for 30-60 minutes before rolling out the tart.
Notes
Nutrition
Life Love and Good Food does not claim to be a registered dietician or nutritionist. Nutritional information shared on this site is only an estimate. We recommend running the ingredients through an online nutritional calculator if you need to verify any information.
I’m thrilled with the results of this crust! I was worried because all the other recipes called for shortening, but that’s not something I keep on hand. I had already made the filling (coincidentally the recipe I use is almost EXACTLY like urs; same ingredients, same process, just slight variation on the amounts) but I’ve always used puff pastry (with varying degrees of disappointment). this was my very first homemade crust and it turned out EXCELLENT! I made six tartlets in a muffin tin and one medium sized one (baked it on a cookie sheet). I used frozen butter and I did pop each completed item in the freezer for a few minutes before baking, and I was SO happy with the results. Thanks! I’ll be using this again for sure.
Trusted & tried with thawed, drained cherries…filling mixture was a little watery, but this can be solved by transferring cherries by spoon instead of pouring filling straight from the bowl.
So happy that pie crust and construction was incredibly newbie friendly ! Will definitely be making this again 🙂
p.s. really enjoy the way lemon cuts through the sweetness of the cherries.
Thank you !
Can the dough be made by hand or do you need a food processor?
Also- can flour be used as a replacement for the cornstarch?
Yes, you can use flour instead of cornstarch.
Tashi, using a food processor is the EASIEST way to make this pie dough, however, you can also cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or a fork.
The juice from cherries flowed out of the pastry….I did use the 1 tablespoon of cornstarch ,lemon and sugar as specified……maybe cherries were too juicy? Tasted good but pretty messy……
Carol, this recipe would probably work best with “just ripe” cherries — glad you still enjoyed the taste!
One has to be quite careful assembling the crust because if there’s any break in the rim, all the juice will flow out (as happened in my first attempt). What I did to resolve this was to take the juice that had run out, quickly put it in a bowl in the microwave and heated at on high for 30 second bursts to thicken it up then poured it back over the cherries.
We made this yesterday with fresh yellow and red cherries that we picked the same day. It was incredible!!! We used Dufour Pastry Dough instead of making from scratch – but followed your filling recipe. My husband said its the best thing I’ve ever cooked. It was also so easy to make and so simple that the cherries were highlighted when eating. Thanks for the recipe – we will be making this again!
Lauren, soooo very glad you enjoyed the recipe! Cherry pie with fresh cherries really is the best!
The body of the recipe says “cherry blueberry filling” but there aren’t any blueberries in the ingredient list. Was that a “typo?”
This tart looks perfect. Simple to make and wonderful. I bought cherries that I halved, pitted and froze. If I thawed my cherries do you think they would work to make this tart? I’m hoping so. Your thoughts about using thawed frozen cherries would be very much appreciated. Thanks … Linda
Linda, I’m planning on freezing some cherries this week (while they are still on sale) and am planning on using them for tarts later as well. I haven’t tried the recipe with frozen cherries yet, but I would plan to drain the cherries after they thaw to remove any excess liquid. If you do try it, please let me know how it works for you. Enjoy and Happy 4th!
My plans are for over the weekend too. Just love how simple and wholesome this recipe is. Just doesn’t get any better! Happy 4th and Happy Cooking!!
i love cherries. it looks so good!
Thanks, Dina. Let me know if you try this recipe and come back here to rate it, too! Happy 4th!
So glad you liked the recipe! Annnnnnnd your tart looks even better than mine!! xx
Oh, thank you, Katrina! I did really like it…so much so that I’ll be making another one this weekend 🙂