I have a bit of a backlog. I seem to open half my posts with that. I need to get my act together. I’ve been so busy (again, and I was expecting such a quiet July…) and a lot of that is blog related. I took advantage of working from home during the tube strike last week though to do some baking (gaining a couple of hours back in a day is pretty hand when you don’t have to travel). Having said that, it did take me 2.5 hours to get home from a Selfridges event I attended on the Wednesday night (more on that to come soon). The great thing about a Chocolate Tart is that while it needs plenty of chill time, the actual hands on time is fairly minimal.
I wanted to carry on my pastry journey. You can see the first few other bits here, here and here. This time around was a sweet shortcrust pastry shell and a chance for me to take what I learnt when I visited Bake With Maria a few months back.
I will say this now, while it’s a relatively simple recipe, it’s not a cheap one. You cannot scrimp on the quality of the chocolate you use here or you will simply have a fairly inferior tart. I just realised what I wrote as the second half of that sentence, oops. The white chocolate topping is completely optional (and I made far too much…) but it adds a bit of sweetness to an otherwise dark dessert. I’d also recommend serving this with some ice cream, perhaps vanilla or pistachio.
- Ingredients:
- **For the pastry**
- 250g Plain flour, plus extra for dusting and rolling
- Pinch Salt
- 125g ice cold butter (as cold as you can)
- 3 free-range egg yolks (the whites are not needed)
- 125g Caster Sugar
- **For the filling**
- 400ml Double Cream
- Few drops Vanilla Extract
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 400g Dark Chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids, cut into pieces
- 50g Butter, cubed
- **For the White Chocolate Drizzle**
- 100ml Single Cream
- Few drops Vanilla Extract
- 100g White Chocolate, cut into pieces
- Cacoa Nibs (optional, to garnish)
- To serve: Raspberries and ice cream, both optional, this tart is great on its own.
- **For the Pastry*
- Place the flour, salt and butter into a large bowl and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs (this can be done in a food processor by pulsing, if you have one).
- Add the egg yolks and the sugar and (pulse if using processor) use a spatula to mix until it comes together and forms a dough. You may need a splash of ice cold water here if it's too dry.
- Place the ball of dough in the fridge, wrapped in cling film, for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C(180°C fan assisted) whilst the dough chills.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out until it'll fit into a 25cm fluted pie tin.
- Cover with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans (I use rice).
- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and rice and bake for a further 5 minutes until it has lightly browned.
- **For the filling**
- Bring the cream, sugar and vanilla to the boil slowly over a medium to low heat. Stirring so it doesn't catch.
- Place the chocolate and the butter into a large bowl and pour the boiling cream mixture over them.
- Mix well until the chocolate and butter have completely melted and the mixture is smooth.
- Pour into the pastry case and smooth out the top.
- Place in the fridge for two hours until set.
- Towards the end of the chilling, make the white chocolate drizzle. Do this in a similar manner to the chocolate filling but minus the sugar.
- Use a spoon to drizzle this over the top. You'll likely have some left over, but hey... you've got a spoon, right?
- Place back in the fridge for 20 minutes until the top layer has set.
- Garnish and serve with ice cream and fresh fruit.