Lessons in the Making · From the garden to the kitchen
Fresh Raspberry Tarts
There are a lot of little stories wrapped up in these raspberry tarts.
The raspberries themselves started with a friend. About three years ago, she invited me over to dig up some of the raspberry suckers spreading around her established plants. She didn’t need them, I happily took them, and I really had no idea what I was doing.
I brought the little canes home, put them in the ground and basically hoped for the best.
We were picking fresh raspberries that very first year. Now, about three years after planting, those free little raspberry suckers have grown into established bushes that are giving us around two cups of fresh raspberries a day right now. It is honestly amazing to walk outside and pick that much fruit from plants that started because a friend simply had something growing in abundance and offered to share it.
And now they’re going to keep going.
My plan is to dig up some of our own suckers, move them closer to the garden and eventually have a whole lot more raspberries growing around here. Maybe someday we’ll be the ones calling a friend and saying, come dig some up, we have plenty.
That feels like such a big part of what we’re trying to do here. Not everything needs to be bought. Sometimes someone gives you a plant. You put it in the ground. You learn as you go. For us, that meant fresh berries in the first year, and now enough abundance to be standing in the kitchen figuring out what to make next.
And that brings us to these tarts.
Raspberry tarts are one of Dylan’s favorite desserts. His mom made them for him growing up, and they were also one of his dad Bill Kerr’s favorites, one Vickie would make for their family. The original raspberry filling comes from Miss Vickie’s Kitchen: Family Recipes by Vickie Kerr, who co-created Miss Vickie’s potato chips with Bill and is Dylan’s mom.
Bill and Vickie were potato farmers in Canada. They lived on a farm, and potatoes were the crop they grew, an essential part of the family story behind the chips, the cookbook and the recipes they passed along.
So when our bushes started producing raspberries faster than we could eat them, Dylan had one request: raspberry tarts.
No pressure.
I followed the family raspberry filling and paired it with a simple butter crust made with unsalted Kerrygold butter, flour, a little sugar, salt and water.
And then Nora joined in.
At kindergarten age, making tart shells is pretty much the perfect baking job. Roll out dough, grab a glass, cut circles and push them into little tins. It’s basically Play-Doh that you get to eat afterward, once it’s baked.
I was probably the only one not playing.
I was nervous! There’s something slightly intimidating about making your husband’s favorite childhood dessert from his mom’s recipe. I wanted to get it right. But once I understood the dough and realized how forgiving these little tarts actually are, I realized there’s plenty of room for more playing next time.
And maybe that’s my favorite part of the whole thing.
A friend shared her raspberry plants with me. I planted them, and we’ve been enjoying their berries since that first year. This time, Nora and I used our harvest to make a recipe Dylan grew up eating from his mom’s kitchen. And someday we’ll share suckers from these same plants with someone else.
Everyone contributes a little something to what we grow, make and pass along.
That’s pretty much the whole point. 🌱