French Chocolate Tart

I made the most delicious French chocolate tart from the recipe book my friend gave me that has all these traditional dessert recipes – some of which I’ve heard of and others, which are new. Red wine cake anyone? Potato cake? I do want to try the blackberry cake too and a bunch others, but first I tried the chocolate tart.

“Grandma’s bakery”

Mine, as usual, is a gluten-free version. The only thing I did to the crust was to substitute a gluten-free flour mix because I knew the almond powder and egg would keep the crust together. Some recipes are perfect for gluten-free flour.

For the crust. You’ll need 1 2/3 c flour, 3 tablespoons cocoa, 120 grams of cold butter, cut in pieces – I think a stick will do, though it’s just slightly over one stick – an egg, a 1/2 teaspoon salt (I used sea salt crystals so you would get tiny salty bursts), 1/4 c sugar, a teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1/4 c ground almonds.

I put all the dry ingredients in the Cuisinart and mixed them first. Then I added all the wet and mixed it together. At first it will seem like it’s not going to lump, but it does eventually form into a ball.

The recipe says to put in the fridge for a half-hour. I was busy and left it in there longer and had to let it warm up before I could roll it. Honestly, you can probably skip this step, but if you do chill it, don’t keep it in there for more than a half-hour.

With gluten-free crust, it’s good to have parchment paper underneath the crust, and another on top. It keeps it from sticking. With regular crust you would need additional flour too, but I I didn’t need it for this one.

I use the bottom parchment paper to slide it into the quiche pan and even out the crust so the sides are covered. Then I cut the excess parchment paper. I did, however, keep the parchment paper on top to protect the crust as it was baking.

You’ll need to pre-heat the oven to 200°C – 400°F. That’s hot. So you want to protect it. I baked it for 15 minutes with the second parchment paper tucked around it. And I removed the paper and baked it for another 5 minutes.

You need to bake the crust because the filling does not need to go into the oven. So let the crust cool a little, then prepare a double-boiler. I used a stainless steel bowl in a wok with some water, which worked just fine.  Put 300 grams table chocolate, which means not too high a percentage since there is no other sugar added. I used Lindt 52% dark chocolate. Make sure the chocolate is good quality since it carries the taste.

Add 60 grams cold butter (about half a stick) and start the water underneath simmering. Mix everything as it melts together.

In a separate pan, heat (slowly) a cup of crème fraîche. I just discovered a recipe for making crème fraîche if you can’t easily buy it. It’s here. Make sure the cream has no added ingredients, like some type of thickener. It should be pure cream.

When you melt it, it does become liquid. You need to add a double espresso to the filling, and just to be able to give you accurate measurements, I  measured out mine – 1/4 cup espresso. Mix that into the warm cream.

And then mix all that with your chocolate and butter mixture.

Pour it into your crust.

Do it slowly to have as few bubbles as possible. The recipe said to cover the tart before you put it back in the refrigerator, but I found that to be impossible. The plastic wrap kept falling on to the runny middle.

And causing bubbles.

You need to refrigerate it for at least 2 hours. Then you can cut a piece, and you’ll see that the inside is perfectly firm. Gorgeous, in fact, bubbles and all.

The family hovered over me as I cut a piece to photograph. Even though it was an hour away from dinner, I took pity on them and gave them all a small piece.

They just about fell on the floor after taking the first bite.

I might have too, except I was too busy licking my plate.

If you want more (mostly) French recipes, just click here for my recipe page.

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