There’s a fancy organic fruit and veg store near my hairdresser, the kind where the lighting is low, the vegetables are lovingly presented in wicker baskets on beds of hay, and everything smells like bergamot. I love these stores as they always have kale and I am middle class to the very core. I was having company for dinner that night, so I was idly thinking of what to make, when I happened upon a mighty $5 bunch of organic rhubarb. ‘I like rhubarb,’ I thought. ‘I could make that cream cheese and rhubarb pie I bookmarked long ago.’ Then, as I often do when thinking of dinner, I tried to visualise myself making a pie crust. ‘Oh no,’ I thought. ‘Pie won’t do. Out of anything I have no pie plates. Maybe a tart? Maybe one made with one of those pressed tart shells that Heidi does so well? Wouldn’t that just be a cheesecake, then?’ I won’t share the extended debate I had in my head on the ontology of tarts and cheesecakes as I carried my $5 rhubarb home, but I had resolved to make a tart, a tart with rhubarb and cream cheese.
In the end it was… okay. Actually, no, it was great, but I didn’t cook the rhubarb layer for long enough, nor did I sweeten it enough. As a result it was jarringly astringent against the cream cheese and the shell. And good gravy, Martha, that shell, that shell, that shatteringly perfect, nutty, vanilla-fragrant shell, light of my life, fire of my loins, so easy and crisp and perfect it was, no rolling pin required. And the cream cheese layer was just perfect, too, cheese cake without the heft, and I’m sure you could easily swap in raspberries or blueberries or strawberries as soon as they’re in season.
I also have no pictures of the finished tart, which is fine by me as it wound up looking a touch endometrial. Here are the hazelnuts in the food processor, though.
Cream cheese and rhubarb tart
Serves 6-8.
Shell, via Gourmet
- 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts
- 1 cup flour
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 60g butter, cold, cut into pieces
- 1 tsp vanilla
- An egg
Cream cheese layer
- 300g cream cheese, or however much a standard block of Philly is, I forget
- An egg
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
Rhubarb layer
- Bunch of rhubarb, washed and chunked
- 3-4 tbsp brown sugar, rounded
- 1 tsp vanilla
Preheat the oven 180 degrees C. Pulse the hazelnuts, flour, sugar and salt in a food processor until finely ground, then add the butter and pulse until crumb-like, with a few pea sized pieces of butter here and there. Add egg and vanilla and pulse until the mixture just begins to clump. Tip into a 23cm tart tin and press firmly into bottom and up sides using your hands or the sides of a glass. Fridge for 10 minutes.
Oil the shiny side of a piece of foil, and press into the tart tin. Fill with pie weights, rice or beans and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and weights, then bake for another 10 minutes, until shell is evenly golden and baked. Cool in pan on a wire rack while you do the rest. Leave the oven on.
To make the cream cheese layer, beat the softened cream cheese with the sugar and vanilla until smooth, or as smooth as you can get it. Pour into the shell.
For the rhubarb layer, put the rhubarb into a heavy saucepan with the sugar and vanilla. Cook over medium-high heat until rhubarb is broken down and jammy, around 10-15 minutes. Spread evenly over the cream cheese layer.
Bake tart in the middle rack for 15-20 minutes, or until barely set. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then fridge for a couple of hours or until properly cold.
