Well, I don’t know about the weather with you but with me it’s raining and when it’s raining, baking is a fabulous way to keep busy and this chocolate tart is a wonderful thing to get busy making as it’s completely delicious with chocolate gooey-ness and a rich layer of caramel, what more could you want!?
So here is how to make it and I hope if you do make it that you love it as much as I do.
p.s – please don’t be daunted by the amount written below – it all comes to together in a dessert well worth trying.
Ingredients for the pastry:
○ You could buy pastry if you’d prefer.
○ If you don’t want to use lard, you could use all butter.
•12oz/340g of self raising flour
•5oz/140g of lard
•2oz/55g of butter
•3/4 of a cup of water
Method:
1) Sieve the flour in to a large mixing bowl, add the lard and butter. Rub until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2) Adding a little water at a time, mix with a knife until the pastry comes together in to a ball – you may have to get you hands in there to bring it together right at the end.
3) Chill for 15-30 minutes.
Ingredients for the caramel:
○ You could also buy caramel if you don’t want to/have time to make it.
•250g of sugar
•4 tablespoons of water
•50g of butter
•145ml of double cream ( I used single cream and it worked well too)
Method:
1) Place sugar and water in to a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium/high heat
2) DO NOT STIR. I’ve tired making caramel before now and by stirring it, there is a chance it would crystallize and that’s not good so every now and then just give the saucepan a gentle shake. It will even out the colour as the mixture turns to caramel. I found the link below VERY helpful.
3) Once it’s at the shade of caramel you’d like, take off the heat and stir in the cream – be careful here as it will bubble quite a lot, keep stirring until it becomes a smooth texture. Add the 50g of butter a little at a time until it’s all been mixed in.
4) Leave to cool. ( The whole caramel process takes about 15 minutes)
http://www.finecooking.com/videos/how-to-make-caramel.aspx
So at this stage you want to heat your oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6.
Then you want to roll out your pastry to line a 23cm tart. Line with foil or baking paper, fill with baking beans and then bake blind for 15-20 minutes then remove the foil/baking paper and baking beans and cook for a further 5 minutes until pale golden.
Leave to cool.
Ingredients for the tart filling:
•100g of 70% plain chocolate broken in to pieces
•100g of white chocolate – I used Milky bar ( it was a 120g bar so I got to eat a little bit too…!)
•6 tablespoons of butter – melted
•2 eggs, plus 3 egg yolks
•4 tablespoons of sugar
Method:
○Lower the oven temperature to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 6
1) Melt the chocolates in a bowl over gently simmering water or in the microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes, stirring half way.
2) Melt the butter and then stir it in to the chocolate.
3) Whisk the 2 eggs, 3 egg yolks and sugar together for 8-10 minutes until pale and thick enough to leave a trail when the whisk is lifted.
4) Fold in the melted chocolate and mix together thoroughly.
5) Now don’t forget the caramel, here is where you need to spread a generous layer of your cooled caramel over the base of the pastry.
6) Then pour in your chocolate mixture.
7) Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The surface should be set and puffed but with a little wobble. Cool then chill for at least 3 hours. ( If you want you can make it the day before and chill it overnight)
8) Before serving, dust with icing sugar. Serve with cream or ice-cream or whatever you might fancy!
Yum.Yum.Yum!
♥ If you’ve any caramel left over it would be the perfect ice-cream sauce!
With a Hint of Lemon 