I’ve always wanted to make a chocolate tart, but honestly, I had been scared of making the pastry required for the base. I’m not sure why, but making pastry has always seemed difficult. The time required, the kneading, the rolling, the making sure it’s perfect to it cooks (and also the dried beans/pie weights needed?! WHAT!)
I tend not to have the time, nor the patience and recipes with lots of steps scare me. But I was a determined woman, after years of wanting to make a chocolate tart, but never actually doing it – it was time. I was having some friends over for an afternoon so I decided to experiment on them. I finally had the time, thank you Ramadan hours at work!
I scoured the net for a pastry recipe that would suit me and found one that, albeit time consuming, seemed fairly simple enough. The chocolate part is easyyyy – chocolate, cream, heat it up, yummy.
Looking in the fridge, I saw some ducle de leche and thought, why not mix it up and add some of this to the tart as well. I’ll post how to make some ducle de leche so you can see how easy it is to make it!
On the the recipe, pastry tart first.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of unsalted butter – cold and cut into small cubes
1 large egg – separated
2 tablespoons ice water (more if needed)
Instructions:
Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a bowl and then add in the butter. Mix in with your hands until you get coarse crumbs.
Whisk the egg yolk with the ice water, and then making a well in the middle of the dry ingredients – add in the egg mixture. Work the dough well, and if it is crumbly add in more water. I had too add in more water. I also initially didn’t work it enough, so make sure you really do work it in so nothing is crumbling. Once done, wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge.
After the 30 minutes, roll out the dough on a slightly floured surface. Roll up the dough on your rolling pin, and lay it on a 9 inch tart pan that has a removable bottom. Press the dough in the pan and then shave off the excess. Then in the fridge again for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and before putting the tart in the oven, line it with aluminium foil and add either dried beans, rice or pie weights (if you have) into the foil layer. Bake for 30 minutes, and then remove the foil and dry filling.
Coat the crush with a beaten egg white, and then bake for another 8 minutes until it is golden in colour. Now finally you can add in the filling and bake it for the actual delicious tart.
Before putting in the tart with the filling, lower the temperature to 325 degrees F.
NOW the filling recipe!
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
10 ounces chocolate – I used a mixture of dark chocolate and milk chocolate
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs at room temperature
To make the filling, heat the heavy cream and milk in a pot, until it is simmering. Remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Add in the sugar, salt and then add in the beaten eggs until everything is completely blended.
Before putting the chocolate in the pastry, take the dulce de leche that should be at room temperature and layer that onto the tart pastry. Then add in the chocolate filling.
Put it in the oven at 325 fahrenheit for about 20 minutes until it is set.
Eating With Ayla 