Simple Chocolate Tart

I had wanted to make a banana cream pie using the left over tart crust from making the matcha cheesecake tart. However, I had to reserve my whipping cream for a batch of mango hokkaido cupcakes which I had planned to bake for my baking kaki (kaki refers to friend, buddy).

A quick glance through my ever growing list of to-dos, I settled on this simple chocolate tart recipe taken from my current favourite cookbook...Home Baking 星期天的烘焙时光 (loosely translated as Baking on a Sunday).

This chocolate tart is made simply by pouring chocolate ganache onto a pre-baked tart crust, and then decorated with some chopped pistachios. Since I have made the dough pastry earlier all I had to do was to thaw the frozen dough in the fridge (over night), this saves me one step of making the dough from scratch :)

The original recipe requires dairy whipping cream or heavy cream to make the chocolate ganache. I was very reluctant to get a tub of dairy cream just for this, as I always have problem finishing the leftovers. This caused me to switch on my 'experimental mode'....why not substitute the heavy cream with milk ? I had great success making homemade chocolate fondue with low fat milk (see here)...so I was confident that it would work the same for this chocolate tart.

I did a search online and learned that milk can be used to make chocolate ganache, as long as some butter is added. Bingo! What a coincident that this chocolate filling also requires butter! And, the rest is history...


I shall let the following pictures speak for themselves...

Since I couldn't make a banana cream pie, I had, on purpose, used banana flavoured low fat milk to make the chocolate filling. Even with untrained palate, my younger child was able to detect the strong banana flavour in the chocolate tart. Well, I am not sure whether this is actually a good thing as it means that the milk is loaded with too much artificial flavouring!

Following the instructions in the recipe, I had also added some Kahlua coffee liqueur to the chocolate filling. With an equally untrained palate, I wasn't able to tell whether a tart is spiked with alcohol, lol. The only difference I could detect was, the filling was slightly bitter after I added in the Kahlua...but there wasn't any coffee taste to it. Either the amount of liqueur used is too little or its presence was overshadowed by the chocolate or the banana flavoured milk.

Nevertheless, this simple tart serves as a delightful dessert...something I will certainly make again. Nothing beats a homemade tart crust that perfectly complements the smooth and velvety chocolate filling (with just the right consistency, not too runny and not too firm)...and not forgetting the pistachios...you will never go wrong matching nuts with chocolate!



Chocolate Tart
(makes an 18cm tart)

Ingredients:

for the tart crust:
(Note: the ingredient makes 2 tart crust dough, you may freeze the second dough up to 2 weeks for later use).
150g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, softened at room temperature
80g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten (about 55g without shell, use room temperature egg)
250g cake flour
60g ground almond (almond powder)

for the filling:
120g dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used bittersweet mini chocolate chips)
30g unsalted butter
85ml fresh milk (I used banana flavoured low fat milk)
2 teaspoons Kahlua coffee liqueur (omit if not available)

some chopped pistachios for decorating

Method:

to make the tart crust:

• Lightly grease an 18cm tart pan (with removable base) with butter, set aside.
• Toast almond powder at 100 degC for 10 mins. Stirring in between. Let cool.
• Beat sugar and butter with a ballon whisk until the mixture turns pale. Add the egg gradually (a tablespoon at a time), mix well after each addition. Add the ground almond and fold with a spatula. Sieve over the flour. Mix with spatula and gather the mixture with hand to form a soft dough.
• Weigh and divide the dough into 2 egual portion. Flatten the dough to form a round disc. Place each dough into separate ziplock or plastic bags. Leave one of the doughs to chill for about 1 hour. Store the other dough in the freezer compartment for later use for other types of tarts. (Note: Alternatively, you may divide the crust ingredients into half and make only 1 portion).
• Remove dough from fridge and roll out the dough in between 2 sheets of baking paper (I used two plastic sheets cut-out from clear plastic bags) to about 23cm in diameter. Remove one side of the baking paper/plastic sheet. Gently lift up the other sheet of baking paper/plastic (with the pastry dough still on it) and flip the dough over the prepared tart pan. Remove the baking paper/plastic sheet. (Don't worry if some parts of the dough broke off. It can be moulded easily back into the tart pan.) Mould the dough into the tart pan, smoothing the edges and the rim carefully.
• Prick the dough surface with a fork (this helps to prevent the pastry from puffing up when baking). Cover and chill the moulded tart crust in the fridge for 20mins (this helps to prevent the pastry from shrinking too much after baking.)
• Line a sheet of parchment paper over the tart base. Place baking beads/weights on the parchment paper (I used green beans as baking weights), enough to cover the tart base.
• Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 degC for 20 mins. Remove the baking beads and parchment paper. Put it back into the oven and continue to bake for another 15~20mins until the crust is golden browned. Let cool completely. Leave the crust inside the tart pan, do not unmould.

to make the filling:

• Place milk and butter in a saucepan, bring to a simmer. Once the butter is melted, turn off the heat. Add in finely chopped chocolate (or chocolate chips) and leave it for about 1 min. Stir until all the chocolate melts and the mixture becomes smooth. Leave to cool. Add in Kahlua, stir to combine.
• Pour the chocolate mixture into the tart. Chill the tart in the fridge until the chocolate mixture is set. Unmould tart and decorate with chopped pistachios as desired. 

Recipe source: 甜点新手零失败教室 and Home Baking 星期天的烘焙时光