Apologies on the late post, things have been hectic.
Last week, in addition to the panna cottas, I also made chocolate fruit tarts.
This is the only picture of the finished product that I have..sorry! The filling is a baked chocolate cream. You can definitely substitute for regular pastry cream or chocolate pudding instead!
A crucial factor in making a flaky tart/pie dough is to keep ALL of your ingredients very cold. I like to measure out my butter/shortening/flour in a bowl, then toss it in the freezer for about 15-20 minutes.
I ran out of foil (no clue how that happened!) so I didn’t know what to use as pie/tart weights – until I saw my cupcake liners staring back at me. It was such a genius idea and worked perfectly. I amaze myself sometimes :P.
They came out flaky, but not as flaky as I had hope. I might have overworked the dough a bit while rolling it out! Eek!
The recipe:
Chocolate Fruit Tart
Tart dough(Yields two 9 inch tart/pie shells)
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup water, ice cold
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup + 5 tbsp unsalted butter, very cold
1. In small bowl, dissolve salt and water. Keep ice cold until ready to use
2. Put flour in mixing bowl. Cut butter into flour until the mixture forms large crumbs and some of the butter is still the size of peas.
3. Drizzle in the ice cold water mixture and mix until dough begins to come together in a shaggy mass.
4. Gently mix until dough forms a ball, but is not completely smooth.
5. Divide dough into 2 equal balls and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
KITCHEN NOTES: To pre-bake the shells, fill shells with pie weights and bake for 15 minutes in 375F oven. For a fully baked shell, fill with pie weights and bake for about 25 minutes, until surface looks light brown. Remove pie weights and bake for addition 5-10 minutes. For this recipe, I pre-baked the shells first.
Baked Chocolate Filling
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
10 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1. Heat heavy cream and milk over medium heat until the edges begin to form bubbles. Do not let boil!
2. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate until melted and smooth
3. Beat eggs in a small bowl and add to chocolate mixture. Stir quickly until completely smooth
4. Pour filling into your pie/tart shell and bake for 15-20 minutes at 325 degrees.
5. If bubbles begin to form on the surface, take them out right away – they’re on the verge of being over baked. Let cool before adding fruits!
Garnish with your favorite fruits and serve!
For this recipe I made about 2 dozen small tarts and still had dough leftover. Next time I will have halve the dough and chocolate filling recipe.
I’m not sure what I’ll be baking next..I’m currently in Hades since it’s finals week and I’ve got much to finish. But one thing’s for sure; I’m totally addicted to MasterChef right now!!!!!!!!!!!
The Messy Kitchen Chronicles 