tarte noire

July 23, 2007 at 3:56 pm | Posted in Chocolate, Tarts and Pies | 21 Comments

i baked a tarte noire (literally translated – black tart) last week but i was so caught up with my first week doing relief teaching that i couldn’t find the time to do a proper post. any free time was either spent meeting up with dear friends for coffee or, you guessed it – sleeping.

i made a whole 7 inch tart for the boy, and two mini ones for myself and shidah – a symbolic mark of the end of our undergraduate journey.

adapted from baking: from my home to yours; dorie greenspan

for the crust:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
130g cold salted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

1. put the flour, sugar and butter into a mixer (i used a Kenwood mixer with the K-beater) and beat to combine. (if you don’t have this, you can put the ingredients in a bowl and rub in wit your fingers.)

2. when the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs, add in the yolk and continue to beat. when the ingredients are mixed uniformly, turn it out to a work surface and knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

3. butter a 9-inch (or you could make several tartlets) fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes; preferably longer.

4. centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminium foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. put the tart pan on a baking tray and bake for 25 minutes. carefully remove the foil. if the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. if you prefer your crust to be more brown and crisp, bake for another 8 minutes or so. transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust completely before filling.

for the filling:

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup plus 2 tbsp whipping cream
55g butter, cut into small pieces, at room temperature

1. put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and have a whisk at hand.
bring the cream to a boil, then pour half of it over the chocolate and let it sit for 30 seconds. working with the whisk, very gently stir the chocolate and cream together in small circles, starting at the centre of the bowl and working your way out.

2. pour in the remainder of the cream and blend it into the chocolate, using the same circular motion. when the ganache is smooth and shiny, stir in the butter piece by piece. don’t stir the ganache any more than you must to blend the ingredients – the less you work it, the darker, smoother and shinier it will be.

3. pour the ganache into the crust and gently turn the pan from side to side to even the ganache. refrigerate the tart to let the ganache set.

the tart base was crumbly and buttery, and the chocolate filling was a shot through the head. do i need to say more?