Cravings Sated: Chocolate Tart

I’ve been on a pretty serious chocolate kick for some time now – craving a hot, fudge piece of cake when everyone else would prefer lemonade (like everywhere else, it’s been seriously hot and muggy around here lately). So, i decided to make a chocolate tart to satisfy not only my deep need for chocolate, but also my hope to keep improving my crusts by tackling another pastry. This time I followed the advice of Heather Baird in her new dessert cookbook SprinkleBakes. And I have to add here that I am in love with this cookbook – beautiful photos, inspiring recipes, and it’s even constructed well, being made to be sitting open in the kitchen (no binding breaking here!). One of my biggest pet peeves is a beautiful cookbook that seems to be made to be unopened, with all its beauty and wisdom unshared, as you’d have to destroy the book to use it even once (I know, I’m weird, and I’m okay with that). Anyways… back to tarts!

Yummy, huh?

Here’s my beautiful tart dough. Heather’s tart dough recipe puts those pie crusts to serious shame – this stuff is lovely to work with.

However, I do have one complaint… tart crusts take forever to cool! I was getting very impatient, just staring at this bowl of chocolate ganache that I couldn’t pour in just yet.

However, it finally came together and it was lovely! I went with semisweet chocolate in the ganache, and it was perfect, just sweet enough to eat a whole slice without any whipped cream or fruit, but not too sweet that you would feel guilty about eating it for breakfast… Not that I did all week, or anything…

Tart Crust recipe from SprinkleBakes:

1 cup flour (all-purpose)
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick cold butter, cubed
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp water

Grease a tart pan (I took a shortcut here & it came out fine, except that we had to chip away at the crust to get it to come loose).
Toss the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and mix it up.
Then pulse in the butter & zest until it looks like little oatmeal.
Add the remaining ingredients and pulse until it has just come together.
Next you’ll gather the dough and make a ball on a lightly floured surface and then press it into the tart pan.
Toss in the fridge for at 45 minutes then prick the bottom ALOT with a fork… I even had to prick the bottom while it was baking because a big bubble formed.
Put it in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes – the crust should be a golden, not brown, color.
Let the crust cool… No matter how much you’d rather not…. It’ll be worth it in the end, promise.

Wondering what to do with that 1 extra egg white? Whisk it up as fluffy as you can make it and pour into a ramekin with some cream or milk and shredded cheese, fold in & stick in the oven until you see it puff up – Voila! You’ve just made cheese soufflé! (this is my own little experimental snack I made while very hungry and waiting for my tart crust to cool).

For the filling I made a Chocolate Ganache, also from SprinkleBakes:

9 ounces chocolate (I went for semisweet instead of bittersweet)
1 cup heavy cream

Chop chocolate and put in a medium-large bowl (you definitely don’t want to get splattered with boiling milk later).
In a saucepan, heat the cream until it has just come to a boil.
Pour the cream over the chocolate and whisk together, and then let the chocolate cool slightly before pouring it into the tart crust.

I then let the tart cool in the fridge for half the day, and was ready for dessert after dinner. Topped with freshly whipped cream and raspberries, only one word comes to mind… divine.

Hope you enjoy something sweet today, whether with sugar or love!