Easter is coming up so here’s a delicious chocolate tart to serve on Easter Sunday – if you haven’t already had enough chocolate in the form of Easter eggs!
It has a rich dark biscuit pastry chocolate shell, filled with dark and milk chocolate. Chocolate three ways!
You need to serve this tart with fresh fruit and plenty of whipped cream or Greek yoghurt to cut through all that rich chocolate.
Ingredients
For the pastry:
175g unsalted butter
75g icing sugar
2 free-range egg yolks
200g plain flour
50g dutch cocoa
For the filling:
150g milk chocolate
150g dark chocolate
400ml cream
2 free range eggs +1 egg yolk lightly beaten
To decorate:
Strawberries, dark chocolate, fresh figs, or any other fresh fruit of your choosing. Grapes would be nice too.
Method
I make this pastry recipe in the food processor, but you could do it in an electric mixer or by hand. I use the food processor because it’s easy.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C fan forced.
Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a food processor. Add the eggs and yolk and mix thoroughly. Sift the flour and cocoa. Have 25ml of cold water ready. Add a little of the water and all of the flour/cocoa mix and pulse using the processor, stopping every now and then to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add as much of the water as you need so that the pastry comes together into a ball. Remove from the processor, wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Roll out the pastry on a surface dusted with flour until about 5mm thick. This pastry is quite soft and delicate, be gentle, and you may need a little extra flour for rolling out. Line a 18cm or 20cm loose-bottomed tin with a circle of baking paper. The smaller tin gives you a slightly higher filling, the bigger a flatter tart.
Carefully line the tin with the pastry. Have a bit of overhang of pastry at the top – you can trim this after baking. Chill for 30 minutes. Line the pastry case with more baking paper and baking beans or rice and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the paper and the beans and return the pastry case to the oven for 5 minutes until golden. Leave to cool in the tin, then trim any pastry edges.
To make the filling, place both kinds of chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. Put the cream in a saucepan on the stovetop and gently bring to a simmer. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Leave for a few minutes while the chocolate melts, then stir to make sure the chocolate and cream is combined. Stir through the lightly beaten eggs, then pour the mixture into the tart shell.
Put into the oven, turn the temperature down to 140 degrees C fan forced. Bake for 1 hour or until the filling is just set and wobbles in the middle if you gently move the tin. You may need to cook a little less or more to get that set with a “wobble”.
Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin. Place in the fridge and chill for at least an hour, overnight is good. Bring the tart to room temperature before serving.
The Quirk and the Cool 