This morning I woke up. Not very exciting, I know. But hey, I woke up healthy and to a sunny morning. What a truly beautiful day, I mean it. All sunny and crisp. The birds were chirping, the breeze was sweet and fresh and this was all made better by the fact that I was able to Skype my sister today! This was lovely. Chatting away about this and that, but just seeing her was the main joy.
Anyway, mother is having a dinner party tonight and wanted something yummy for dessert, plus I was looking for something to bake as my bake of the day. I came up with this. My own recipe. This is my chocolate and caramel tart with a little salt and a caramel swirl on top for decoration purposes.
This tart is a perfect combination of sweet, bitter, salty and smooth. The sweetness comes from the cream and the caramel. The bitterness comes from the dark chocolate. The salty tang comes from the salt I add to the chocolate to season it a little. Finally, the smoothness comes from that silky texture of the ganache.
If I didn't make the chocolate filling a ganache, then this would be a very different tart indeed. All crunchy and thick as a brick. It wouldn't melt in the mouth. It would be like eating the weirdest chocolate bar in your life, that for some strange reason had pastry around it and caramel on top. Okay, the caramel past isn't strange, but the rest is.
I use 70% dark chocolate. The better quality the chocolate, the better tasting your tart will be.
Honestly, if you buy crap, then whatever you make is gonna taste the same. It's true, and we all know it. I'm not saying spend hundreds on some ingredients, just don't buy the bare minimum, it won't taste nearly as good as it could, had you been a little less stingy or cynical. It will make a difference, especially when it is the main ingredient.
For example, if it is a chocolate tart, like this, don't buy the 40p stuff, it tastes like cardboard. It is alright for rice krispy buns, as it is only a super fine coating though.
Enough of my opinions and more about this 'tart-licious' tart. This is such a wonderful dessert. The perfect ending to a dessert. It isn't garishly sweet, making you want to eat a lemon to cut through all that cakey sweetness, but not too bitter, making you want to eat something gently sweet.
As technical as this tart may look, it is surprisingly quick and easy to make. Something delicious and relaxed for those dark, rainy days, where you need a little light to shine in. This will certainly do the job. Who cares about calories and all that stuff (I wouldn't exactly recommend eating the whole thing to yourself, but a sliver a day, probably not that either actually, a sliver occasionally shouldn't do anything but make you happy and full of caramel goodness.)
The equipment you will need for this isn't vital, but if you want it to look like a tart and make life easier, then the following equipment will certainly help in achieving that goal. :)
Equipment:
- Pastry tin, with a removable bottom
- Rolling pin; to roll things out funnily enough (sarcasm)
- Non stick pot, for the ganache
- Baking paper and something like pasta, rice or baking beans, this is to weigh down the pastry
- Piping bag, for the swirl
The ingredients for this dessert are so good and probably something you'll have lying around in the house on those rainy days. This would be a fun little dessert to do with the kids as well, but it can be made to look a little more professional and special for occasions like dinner parties and such like. That is what i've tried to do.
Ingredients:
Greasing (for the tin):
- 1 tbsp Plain flour, sifted all round the tin and corners. This will hopefully make it easier and quicker to get an even layer. If not, just sprinkle on using hands (yours, preferably) and tap the excess out.
- 1 tbsp Butter, may as well use unsalted as you have it already. I don't know about where you are, but where I am, the smallest quantity of butter available to buy in a packet is 250g, so it isn't like you are having to buy extra butter for the greasing as well.
Pastry:
- 225g Plain flour; don't bother sifting, it's all going to the same place
- 100g butter; preferably unsalted as I find it makes pastry taste better and lighter almost
- 25g Caster sugar
- 1 Egg, the whole things. Whites and all.
Filling:
- 600g Good quality, dark chocolate. 70% if you can get it.
- 600ml Double cream
- Small pinch of salt
- Small knob of butter; there comes that unsalted again, so many efficient uses for it in this recipe. Waste not, want not.
Caramel: (BBC FOOD RECIPE)
- 175g Light, brown sugar
- 300ml Double cream
- 50g Butter; unsalted butter, we be needing you again :)
- Pinch of salt
So, that is all the ingredients you'll be needing. No idea how much this is going to cost you as I don't know where you live or what supermarket you are shopping at, but hey, how can you put a price on a happy tummy?
Well, quite easily actually. I think I'd get a tummy ache if I was eating something in the 3 figure region. I mean this is something I am eating and only once. I'm only seeing it the one time, all being well and I find myself wondering how could spending the 3 figure mark on it be justified? How did I get onto this? Sorry
The method for making this tart is quite simple and lay back as well, which is why I thought it'd be a good thing to make with your kids if you have them.
!WARNING, I'M ABOUT THE RAMBLE ABOUT A MEMORY!
I always loved baking when I was younger and continue to enjoy it. Mama used to make my sister and I these inedible dough mixtures. Just some flour and water mixed together to form a thick dough. Bland as you like, but we didn't care. This dough was for playing with and molding, not eating and seasoning.
I remember when I was 5 or so, in nursery and it was my birthday. Now in my nursery, when it was your birthday, you got to ice the cake. They were these single, plain sponge cakes bought from the shop or something. The best part about it, aside from getting a sugar rush, was that the birthday person got the honour of icing the cake. I remember it like it was last week, not yesterday.
It was a butter knife, silver and small. This suited me, as to this day, I have wee hands. I was kneeling on a stool and looking down at this goop. This goop was icing. I got to choose the colour. I chose green, a minty green I think. It was amazing. I took my knife and scooped up a big dribble of icing and spread it over the cake. The way it spread, all silky and smooth. The smell, artificially sweet. The way the icing rims, melted into itself as I spread the knife around the cake. The satisfying plop noise it made when it fell onto the icing already on the cake. I loved it all!
- RAMBLE OVER... FOR NOW. I'M MAKING NO PROMISES
Preheat the oven to 180 C in a fan assisted oven. Place a baking tray in the middle and allow to heat up. This will ensure, that when the pastry case is put in to bake, that the bottom won't be soggy. It'll be shocked first with the full heat and this will enable it to become cooked through and crispy.
Side note: as I am writing this, the dog is sleeping beside me. She is snoring. I swear, it sounds like a softer, slightly sweeter version of my mother snoring. All horse and chainsaw like. Oxymoron? Can you snore soft, sweet and like a chainsaw all at one time? It kinda sounds like she is trying to sniff really hard, but slow and deep.
Weight out all those lovely ingredients and leave aside until they are needed.
To make the ganache, I made this first as we had a Pavlova already in the oven, so the pastry had to wait. Although, it worked out well, as this allowed the ganache to firm up a little, making it a little more stable for when it would go into the tart shell.
Heat up the cream in the non stick pot. You want to heat it to the point just before boiling. This will be when it is steaming and has little, infrequent bubbles around the rim, but isn't consistently bubbling.
Whilst the cream is heating, break up the chocolate. This will help it melt quicker when added to the hot cream.
Add the chocolate when the cream is heated. Make sure you do this off the heat as you don't want to over heat the cream and risk splitting the mix. Stir gently to help the chocolate incorporate into the cream. Once it is thickening and turning a deep, rich chocolate colour, add a little salt and butter. This will make it glossy and seasoned.
Leave this aside to set.
To make the caramel, you need another non stick pot. Put the sugar and butter into the pot and allow them to melt and cook until the sugar starts to caramelise and bubble slightly. Add the cream and mix well so it doesn't burn. Keep mixing until it is all smooth and thickened slightly. Don't let it burn, you need to keep two eyes on it, not just the one.
Add this to the ganache and mix in. This will give you your salted caramel ganache. Wonderful!
Onto the pastry: Combine the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and give it a blitz until it resembles bread crumbs. I find that pulsing it works best, opposed to one long blast. Add the egg and pulse again until it begins to form a ball of pastry.
Take it out and knead briefly to make it smooth and ready to roll. Leave to chill for 15 minutes or so, just enough to let the butter cool and set, making the pastry short and crisp.
Dust a counter top with a little flour and roll out the pastry to the required size. I used a standard size pastry tin. Roll out and then layer over the tin. Press and fold and pull it gently to manoeuvre the pastry into the tin, hopefully without tearing any of it.
Poke holes in the base, this will let the steam out when baking, using a fork.
Line a layer of baking paper over it and using the remaining pastry, press the sides into the little grooves of the tin. Also, be extra efficient and use the left over to make a lining to go around the inner circle of the tart on the paper. This will weigh the edges down. Then pour in some pasta, rice or baking beans for the middle.
Pop into the oven for around 20 minutes, or until the edges are browned and base partially cooked.
Once this is the case, take out, remove the paper, beans and all and put the shell back in the oven to allow the base to cook through. This shouldn't take too long.
Once out and separated from the tin and base, pop the pastry shell onto the plate you are serving on.
Pour in the ganache and leave to set completely.
Preferably out in room temperature, covered in a cool place. But if you are short on time, pop it into the fridge, This will give it a cloudy glaze, that I feel ruins the aesthetics of it, but it'll set and be ready for eating.
Once the chocolate has set enough to be able to support the reserved caramel for decoration, use a piping bag and plain nozzle to pipe a swirl on top.
It's done. Finished. Ready for shoving into your gob. Enjoy!
Serve this at room temperature with a little cream perhaps, not that it is needed. But you only live once, well you certainly will if you are eating these day in, day out. Lol.
Hope you've enjoyed this? Have a lovely evening all!
Till tomorrow for more fun and food!
Ciara
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