Dark Chocolate Tart (TWO SIZE) – Recipe Unfinished..

TARTE AU CHOCOLATE NOIR // DARK CHOCOLATE TART (TWO SIZE) – RECIPE

= INGREDIENTS =

CHOC. SHORT PASTRY

- Bakers Flour/All Purpose Flour (Also known as Plain Flour) 280g

- Unsalted Butter, 200g

- Egg Yolks, 2~3

- Salt, Pinch

- Cocoa Powder, 50g

- Pure Icing Sugar, 120g (Do not get mixed up with Icing Mixture which contains cornstarch/cornflour.)

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CHOC. TART FILLING

- Milk, 80 ml      (160 ml)

- Cream, 200 ml    (400 ml)

- Dark Couverture/Chocolate, 200g  - chips/roughly diced     (400g)

- Egg, beaten, 1       (2)

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GARNISH

- Raspberries/Strawberries, 1 Punnet

- Blueberries, 1 Punnet

- Mint Leaves

= CHOCOLATE SHORT PASTRY METHOD =

- Start by making the chocolate short pastry.

- First preheat oven to 180°C  (356°F).  Lower for my oven.

- Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and icing sugar over a large sheet of baking paper. Set aside.

- Measure the amount of unsalted butter needed and roughly dice into small cubes. Condition (bring down to room temperature) butter either by setting it aside until room temperature, or microwave at 10 second intervals until you can press into the butter without too much pressure. Be careful to not melt your butter.

- Fold together the two longer sides of the baking paper with the sieved dry ingredients, and transfer them into a large bowl.

- Sprinkle the diced unsalted butter that has been brought to room temperature (If it’s still cold and hard it will be difficult to rub in.) over the dry ingredients. Rub the butter and dry ingredients between your fingers to coat the dry ingredients with butter evenly. Continue to do this until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (This is known as the rub-in method.)

*This can also be done on the stand mixer with the paddle attachment on low speed, looking for the same breadcrumb state.

- Add the egg yolks, using your dominant hand to swirl around the batter and kneading to incorporate the yolks evenly whilst the other hand holds the bowl. This way one hand stays clean and holds a firm grip on the bowl as you mix.

*For the stand mixer, stay on low speed as you incorporate the yolks. Then once it is incorporated you can bring it up to low-medium speed and look for the same signs as mentioned above.

- Continue to mix for a few minutes to see if the egg yolks will bring the mixture together to a smooth ball of dough. If after a few minutes and it is still very dry and crumbly, add one more egg yolk and repeat the process. It should come together into a smooth ball of dough after mixing and gentle kneading for a few minutes. Stop kneading once you have a smooth dough.

- Take the dough and push down in multiple turns to flatten your dough into a round disc.

- Take two large sheets of baking paper, lay one on the surface where you will roll out the dough, and place the disc of dough on top. Place the second sheet of baking paper over the dough. Using a rolling pin, applying even pressure on both ends with your palms and roll out the dough from centre out to the side. Then turn the dough by 90 degrees and repeat. Continue until you have a relatively large disc of dough.

- Once it becomes difficult to roll out anymore, remove the sheet of baking paper on top of the dough and sprinkle some plain flour over the surface of the dough. Continue to roll in the same way until you reach approx. 3mm in thickness. Try to keep a round shape - this method of rolling should help.

*To sprinkle you can clench some flour in your palm, and with the palm side facing up, as you throw your hand towards the dough’s direction slightly unlock your pinky and ring finger and that will release the flour in an effective way.

*To check for even thickness, feel the dough with your palm and you should feel the rise in level if it is uneven.

- Once it’s around the right thickness pick up the sides of the baking paper underneath the dough to transfer to a large tray and chill in fridge for 8 minutes. This is to relax and firm up the dough so that it is not only easier to handle, but won’t shrink during baking.

- Remove dough from fridge. On your work surface sprinkle flour and invert the dough onto floured surface with dough side down. Peel away the baking paper. Flour and pin out the dough to make sure it is around 3 mm thickness and gently starting from the end furthest away from you, roll the dough up over onto your rolling pin and dust off any excess flour with a pastry brush. Continue to roll back carefully and dusting off the flour until all the dough is rolled onto the rolling pin.

- Position the rolling pin with the dough around 5cm or so outside the tart tin on the side closest to you, and slightly above the tart begin to unroll so that the dough unrolls very loosely onto the tart tin.

- The dough may begin to crack if left this way for too long, so quickly lift up the dough hanging over the edges of the tart tin and using the back of the middle section of your index finger on the other hand to press the dough into the lower edges. Then using your thumbs, press along the inner sides of the tart to secure the dough’s sides. Gently pat down the base of the tart tin to even out dough.

- Now using the rolling pin, roll it over the top of the tart tin and it will remove all the excess dough hanging over the sides of the tart tin for you. Once again go around with your thumb slightly pressing the sides of the tart tin to make the dough a tiny bit higher than the brim in case you have shrinkage of the tart shell when you bake.

*Place the excess dough together with the rest of the unused dough and set aside. I will use that to demonstrate how to make small tarts.

- Wrap the moulded tart tin with glad wrap all the way round and place on a tray to chill in the freezer for 10~15 minutes.

- Once the tart is firm, place on a baking tray and bake for 20~25 minutes, or until it is dry, slightly firm to touch. It should lose the slight gloss and texture of a dough. Keep watch carefully as you prepare the filling.

= CHOCOLATE TART FILLING METHOD =

- First, prepare the ingredients for the chocolate tart filling. Measure the chocolate chips, or if you are using blocks dice them into small pieces of similar size. Place in a clean glass or stainless steel bowl. 

- In a saucepan or pot add the milk and the cream and bring to a rolling boil. (Where large amounts of bubbling roll from the edge of the pot inwards, almost covering the surface of the liquid.)

- Meanwhile, strain the eggs through a fine strainer to remove the tissue that connects the egg yolk to the eggshell, which will show after baking the filling and will ruin the smooth aesthetics of the tart.

-  Once the pot of milk and cream comes to a rolling boil pour it evenly over the chocolate pieces/chips in the bowl and let sit for 1 minute or so before stirring with a whisk to melt the chocolate into a smooth liquid. Do not be too vigorous with the stirring or you will create lots of air bubbles. Mix only until incorporated with no streaks of cream and milk.

- Add the strained eggs and gently stir with whisk to combine well. Your filling is now ready to be used, if the tart is not fully baked yet gladwrap the bowl of filling and set aside.

- Once the tart is ready set the oven to 150°C  (302°F). Remove it along with the tray from the oven, and set it aside. Using a clean small fine strainer, holding it low inside the tart, position the bowl of filling close to the strainer and pour the filling into the fine strainer. Stop once the strainer is full and add more once around half of the filling inside the strainer has passed through. By doing this you will remove the bubbles, and any large pieces that may be in the mixture. Keep the strainer low near the filling inside the tart so that it won’t create bubbles from dropping down from a lengthy height. Fill it up till very close to the brim of the tart shell as when baked it will rise and then fall down again, and so if you fill it too low the tart will look cheap.

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 Carefully take the tart on the tray and place it back into the oven and bake until bubbles of around 1cm in size are visible around the sides of the filling. This is a sign that the tart filling is ready, it will still be quite wet and wobbly, now let it sit at room temperature in open space until it comes down to cools down.

- Now wrap with gladwrap carefully all the way around with two layers to prevent condensation from the fridge giving you a wet surface on the tart. Place in the freezer for 15~30 minutes to set completely before garnishing.

*Do not immediately put the hot tart into the freezer or it will not only bring down the temperature of the freezer, it will also steam up the glad wrap over it and leave water drops over the smooth surface of the tart filling.

= SMALL TARTS =

- To make small tarts, all you need to do is to roll the dough into a cylinder log, and using a scraper or a knife dipped in some flour to prevent sticking, and cut into smaller balls of dough – size depending on how big the small tart tin you have. It just has to be enough to roll out into a round thin disc of 3mm thickness that will be able to line the tart tin. Then simply follow the same steps of making a large tart. The only thing to note is that you may want to slightly pin the dough just a bit thinner since it’s for a smaller tin, and since it is much smaller the baking time will be shortened too so keep watch and look for the signs!

GARNISH/PLATE-UP:

- Rinse the berries under gentle running water and carefully pour out excess water and place on a paper towel lined plate or tray to remove the water on the berries. Raspberries are particularly fragile so treat with care.

- If using strawberries rinse under running water quickly to clean as it absorbs water easily and that will dilute its flavour, so do not wash or soak for a long time. You can remove or keep the stem, depending on how you want to garnish with it.

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 For mint leaves I like to immediately after buying them, to pick off the good looking leaves and place them in a clean container filled with cold water to preserve their freshness and moisture so that they won't look dry and wilted when I want to garnish with them for desserts. This also saves picking through the good and bad leaves when it comes to garnishing.

- Prepare a nice clean plate with no designs, preferably round cause I find that more suitable for this dessert.  Cut up pieces of a dolly used for the base of cakes in any way you like and stick them line it around fanning out in a circular motion on the plate from centre point outwards. Dust generously with cocoa powder over the holes for patterns and just a few mm over the outside edge. Carefully using a small knife tip lift up the top layer ones first before the others and remove them without dropping excess cocoa powder that will ruin the pattern.

- Place the tart at the centre of the dusted design.  Arrange the berries and mint leaf in any way you like and the dessert is ready to be served!