Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Bake! Citrus-scented chocolate tart


Marthe chose the citrus-scented chocolate tart for her Bake! pick.... Although it's not technically on the schedule until the beginning of July, I will likely not be baking much for the next few weeks, and we had our end-of-the-year staff picnic today, so it seemed like the perfect time to try it out.

This tart starts with the cocoa version of the sweet pastry dough. Given my success with the sweet pastry dough, I was excited to get a more workable chocolate pastry dough than the one I tried for the tartlets last weekend. Things seemed to be going well as I mixed up the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, unsalted butter, and egg (I made a half recipe for one 10" tart) in my food processor. I refrigerated the dough for a day. Sadly, once I began the rolling-out process, this dough gave me the same sticky, rippy problems I had with the other chocolate pastry dough. It actually really reminded me of the troublesome cookie dough crust; I ended up having to do a lot of piecing together to cover the pan. I much prefer the basic sweet dough and the rich pie crust for ease of rolling and transferring.

Anyway, after I got the tart dough in place in the pan, I set to work on the filling, which was easy and smelled heavenly. It was all mixed in a saucepan: half-and-half plus sugar, and then butter and semi-sweet chocolate, and then eggs and salt, and finally lemon zest, orange zest, lemon juice, orange juice, vanilla extract, and a bit of triple sec.

Mine baked for almost twice as long as specified in the recipe; it just kept looking jiggly and the instructions say "bake until the filling is set." I was surprised by the mousse-like texture of the final product; I was expecting something a little more solid.

The tart looked a little plain, and I didn't have any orange slices to use as a garnish, so I made a simple chocolate-butter mixture and drizzled some over the top, just to jazz it up a bit.

This tart was delicious. With my massive sweet tooth, I loved that it was made with semi-sweet chocolate instead of the bittersweet called for in many of NM's other recipes. My kiddos both loved it, as did hubby. One of my friends at the lunch today said, "Oh, my, the flavor just explodes in your mouth! This puts the rest of the food here to shame!" which I thought was quite a compliment. =) Even my dad, who doesn't like chocolate, said it was excellent (although too chocolately for him, of course).

5 comments:

  1. Hi Abby. Just reading your posts about your troubles with Nick's pastry, I have one question...are you kneading it with your hands until "malleable" before you start rolling? I only ask bc I had some issues with my first batch of tartlet dough, but for round 2, I re-read the instructions and realized I hadn't kneaded it long enough. Round 2 was far more successful once I realized this. Just a thought...Your chocolate tart looks divine, BTW. : )

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  2. I ate the last piece between the first and second games of tonight's baseball double-header. With a couple of strawberries, just to add to the decadence. Yummm.

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  3. Don't remember seeing this in the book. I have it checked out from the library right now. Maybe I'll try it and see how the dough goes for me. It will only be the second time I've made dough in the food processor. Some fresh raspberries on top would be pretty too. I like the drizzled chocolate pattern. Very nice!

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  4. I saw this and thought, "Oh no, I'm behind another one???" Whew...not so, you are ahead. Whew. Whew. Whew. LOL. Looks like something the guys are gonna love!!

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  5. This looks amazing, not happy to hear the dough is troublesome. I had problems with the cookie dough too for the strawberry cheesecake crumble tart (still have to post is :S). I ended up not roliling it ou, but simply pushing it down into the pan with my hands.

    Looking forward to making this this weekend so I can take it into work with me for my b-day!

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