Chocolate, Cherry & Pomegranate Torched Meringue Tart

Chocolate, cherry & pomegranate torched meringue tart: an impressive festive dessert that can easily be made ahead. Jump to Recipe  

I’m writing from my usual December spot – roadside in a camping chair, under a huge sun umbrella, next to a fence lined with Christmas trees. As always, kitted out with gardening gloves, lots of red & green buckets and a portable eftpos machine, and set up for the day with soda water, a few good books and a functioning internet extender (anyone who did this job pre-wifi – hats off to you). I’m thinking we should invest in some extra tinsel to drape around the trees and signage for extra festivity points – try and out-Christmas the competition down the road. Seriously, the market is saturated around here.

We order the trees the evening before for the following day, making an educated guess on numbers, and they’re best sold fresh: each day that passes = a slightly droopier, drier looking tree. The newspaper informed us yesterday that a good dose of hairspray is the best way to keep them looking green (beats me – apparently it closes the pores on the pine needles to reduce moisture loss), but we stick with basic buckets of water.  The people are the most interesting part of the job – whether it’s the family with the kids doing the choosing (with parents desperately trying to steer them towards the prettier trees), the harried person who’ll go with whatever you’ve got left (the best) or the picky, grumbling couple who examine every inch of each tree for flaws (the worst – nature isn’t perfect, guys!).

Sitting outside all day does leave ample time for Christmas menu planning, however. And when the opportunity arose to collaborate with Westgold butter, I had the perfect idea in mind for your family do. Westgold is a local New Zealand company making premium, award-winning butter from pasture fed cows with environmentally sustainable practices – and when making pastry, you really do notice the difference. With this recipe, all celebratory boxes are ticked: something involving chocolate, because hello, you just can’t go wrong; something make-ahead, because nobody wants to be in the kitchen more than absolutely necessary on the day; something involving the very festive, seasonal juicy red cherries and jewel-like pomegranates hitting the shelves; and something with a bit of holiday table wow-factor, thanks to a swirled burnished layer of torched meringue. And so, this chocolate, cherry & pomegranate tart with torched meringue was born.

It layers a flaky, buttery cream cheese short pastry with a decadent, intensely dark chocolate filling,  not unlike a cross between fudgy brownie and a silky chocolate pot-de-creme. It’s studded with ripe cherries, and briefly baked just until set, so when it cools you still get the rich gooey-ness in the middle. Just before serving, pile it high with italian meringue, and for extra ooh’s and ahh’s, blow torch it in front of your guests. They’ll think you’re a culinary genius.

Timeline for a festive do: 

• 2 days before: make the pastry
• 1 day before: blind bake the pastry, make the chocolate filling and bake (you can also do this on the day as long as it has a couple of hours to cool before you top it with meringue)
• Day of serving: make the torched meringue

This post was created in collaboration with Westgold Butter NZ. As always, all opinions expressed are my own, including my appreciation of quality New Zealand butter! Thank you so much for supporting the companies that support this blog