Sunday 11 February 2007

Triple chocolate hit

I don't have a particularly sweet tooth, but I love chocolate - the darker and moodier the better. This recipe comes from In the Mood for Food, from the chapter entitled 'Naughty but nice'. You probably couldn't get much naughtier if you tried - Jo calls it 'the Ferrari of chocolate puddings' and she isn't far wrong. I made this a couple of days after buying this book; I simply couldn't resist. I should say here that I am a fan of pastry in moderation - I am not keen on double-crust pies and the like and prefer the pastry/filling ratio that you find in open tarts like this one. It helps that this one has cocoa in the pastry, which is enough to give me cravings.

The 'triple chocolate hit' comes from cocoa-laden pastry, a rich chocolate filling and malted milk chocolate icecream to go with it. I did say it was naughty! I'm not going to give the ice cream recipe here, although I did like it; I also had the tart without it and I think I preferred it that way - the chocolatey ice cream felt a bit much for me (I can't be that much of a chocaholic). I think the tart would go better with a bitter orange ice cream (there is orange zest in the crust) and that the icecream would work on its own with chocolate biscuits to dip.I'm just going to give the tart recipe here.

Pastry:

125g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
65g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
2 1.2 tablespoons of caster sugar
grated zest of 1 orange
t tablespoons milk

Filling:

3 large egg yolks
1 large egg
50g caster sugar
150g unsalted butter
200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped
1 tablespoon grated chocolate or cocoa powder

To make the pastry, sift the flour and cocoa powder into a food processor and blitz with the butter to form fine crumbs. Add the sugar and orange zest and then gradually add the milk, processing briefly to form a soft dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes or longer.

Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160/gas 4.

Thinly roll out the chilled pastry on a well-floured surface and line an approximately 22cm loose-bottomed shallow tart tin. Don't worry if you have any gaps or cracks in the pastry because they can be gilled with the pastry trimmings. Cover with a piece of greaseproof paper and fill with a layer of baking beans or rice. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and cook for a further 5 minutes until the pastry is just becoming golden.

For the filling, whisk the egg yolks and egg with the sugar until very pale, thick and creamy. Melt the butter and dark chocolate. Add to the egg mixture and fold together until completely combined. Pour into the pastry case and bake for 10 minutes (the filling will still be slightly wobbly, but will set when it cools). Remove from the oven and cool completely. To maintain the gooey filling texture, the tart needs to be kept at room temperature. Sprinkle over grated chocolate or dust the tart with cocoa powder and serve with the malted milk chocolate ice cream.
The light in the above photo isn't very good but you get the general idea. We did eat the tart, the first slice anyway, with the malted milk chocolate ice cream, which I made concurrently with the tart; it would make sense to make it beforehand, but I hadn't put the ice cream freezing unit in the freezer early enough to do that. The result was that I dished up the ice cream before it had a chance to fully set in the freezer, then I got distracted, and the next thing I knew the ice cream was melting into a puddle next to the tart.

The tart was absolutely divine. I loved the chocolate orange pastry in particular, and the dense chocolatey filling. The ice cream was good, but I would have preferred a more bitter taste next to the chocolate tart. I wonder if I am less of a chocoholic than I sometimes think. I think I'll make this again and serve it with bitter orange ice cream, and see how that works. I'll keep you posted.

4 comments:

Freya said...

It's chocolate, it's triple chocolate, it's chocolate ice cream...sigh...

Kathryn said...

Indeed!!! The tart was really good. So was the ice cream, but I just think together they require a major chocaholic to eat them...

CJ said...

Well I am a chocoholic and I'm definitely trying this recipe - it looks and sounds delicious.

Kathryn said...

It is delicious CJ! And pretty easy too, but with stages of preparation that make you feel like you've achieved something...