You Tart

I love chocolate but I think I like reading about chocolate desserts and looking at the pictures more than I do cooking with it. My friend, Susannah, had a chocolate cookbook that I would always pick up and drool over when I was at her place. Eventually I bought it myself but to be honest I haven't made many of the desserts in it. Although I have spent ample time flicking through it.

J is not a big dessert fan so when I make cakes we tend to struggle to finish them and I hate throwing food out (something ingrained in me by my Nana). This weekend we were invited to a friends place for dinner so this was a good opportunity to make a chocolate tart I had been admiring in the book. Safe in the knowledge that 6 of us would have a good chance of finishing off the tart. It was delicious and the filling was much lighter than it had looked in the book.

I read recently that you should only cook with chocolate that you would be willing to eat normally. While this sounds completely obvious it was a good advice for me. In the past I used cooking chocolate and to be honest I would never break off a square of that and eat it. I splashed out on some good quality Lindtt Chocolate bars that gave the filling a rich dense flavour.

Rich Chocolate Tart

125g cold unsalted butter, chopped
1 tlbsp caster sugar
200g plain flour
2 tlbsps Dutch-process cocoa
2 egg yolks
Double cream, optional, to serve

Filling

300g dark choc, finely chopped
100ml double cream
125g unsalted butter, chopped
4 eggs
100g caster sugar
1tlbsp golden syrup

1. Process butter, sugar, flour and cocoa in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
2. Add egg yolks and 1½ tlbsps iced water and process until pastry just comes together. Form pastry into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface until 5mmthick and ease it into a 3.5cm
   deep 24cm tart tin with removable base, trimming edge. Line pastry with baking paper and fill with dried beans or rice, place tin on the oven tray and bake at 180oC for 20 mins, then remove paper and beans and bake for another 5 mins or until pastry is dry. Cool.
4. For filling, combine chocolate, cream and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir continuously until butter is melted and mixture is well combined, then remove bowl from heat and set aside.
5. Using an electric mixer, whisk eggs, sugar and golden syrup until pale and creamy, then fold into chocolate mixture. Pour filling into tart shell and bake at 150oC for 35-40 mins or until just set. Cool tart to room temp before serving with double cream.