100% Pure Chocolate Tart
If espresso were a kind of chocolate and you made a tart out of it, this is what it would taste like. If you've never eaten 100% pure cocoa, you will probably find this overwhelmingly bitter. But if you enjoy eating bars of pure unadulterated chocolate, this is the cake for you.
Filling:
7 oz pure 100% chocolate (cacao), cut into little pieces. I used Scharffen Berger, which is delicious and available in 10oz bars at Whole Foods. I would not use "Baker's" brand chocolate, because, frankly, it's crap. I would love to try this with the Pralus 100%, but can't say exactly how it'd turn out because Pralus and Scharffen Berger have pretty different textures--probably because of different fat contents, but I don't really know.
7.5 oz of creme fresh (cultured cream--I was a smidgen low, so I supplemented with a bit of fresh creme.)
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup milk
Cacao nibs to sprinkle on top. (I found these at Whole Foods, too, but I have seen them elsewhere.)
So, whisk the yolk with the creme. Carefully bring your milk to a boil, then turn off the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it melts. Then gently add your yolk/cream mixture and mix well. Pour into your prepared pie crust and sprinkle liberally with cacao nibs.
Crust:
Wheat flour (about two cups?)
Coconut flour (half a cup?)
Hot cocoa powder (a few spoonfuls--this did contain sugar and is totally skipable.)
Pinch of salt
Tsp or two of vanilla extract
Enough cocoa butter to make a dough (I've got a ten pound bag of it sitting on my counter. I have to do *something* with it.) Alternatively, regular butter, coconut oil, or lard would probably all work well.
Sprinkle of cold water?
So, my crust was kind of... well, it tasted delicious when I was making it. MM. Given the ingredients, what else would you expect? However, it is definitely not perfect. Cocoa butter is darn solid at room temperature, (when I tried chilling it like you would a butter dough, it turned into a rock and I had to microwave it back to malleability) and the whole thing was rather sticky and greasy and tricky to roll out and I had to unstick it with a spatula and transfer it in pieces to my baking pan and then smush the pieces together to make a crust. The end result is, IMO, very tasty but very crumbly and a little dry. So a wiser chef than me will probably find a way to massively improve on this recipe.
But anyway, once you have some sort of crust, and you've filled it with your hot gooey chocolately mess and pressed a layer of cocoa nibs into the top, then pop it into your (preheated) oven at 375 F for 25 min. Let it cool, then put it in the fridge for an hour (this is what my chocolate tart instructions called for; I don't really know what would happen if you did something else.)
Then prepare yourself for a delicious dark chocolate experience!
Filling:
7 oz pure 100% chocolate (cacao), cut into little pieces. I used Scharffen Berger, which is delicious and available in 10oz bars at Whole Foods. I would not use "Baker's" brand chocolate, because, frankly, it's crap. I would love to try this with the Pralus 100%, but can't say exactly how it'd turn out because Pralus and Scharffen Berger have pretty different textures--probably because of different fat contents, but I don't really know.
7.5 oz of creme fresh (cultured cream--I was a smidgen low, so I supplemented with a bit of fresh creme.)
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup milk
Cacao nibs to sprinkle on top. (I found these at Whole Foods, too, but I have seen them elsewhere.)
So, whisk the yolk with the creme. Carefully bring your milk to a boil, then turn off the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it melts. Then gently add your yolk/cream mixture and mix well. Pour into your prepared pie crust and sprinkle liberally with cacao nibs.
Crust:
Wheat flour (about two cups?)
Coconut flour (half a cup?)
Hot cocoa powder (a few spoonfuls--this did contain sugar and is totally skipable.)
Pinch of salt
Tsp or two of vanilla extract
Enough cocoa butter to make a dough (I've got a ten pound bag of it sitting on my counter. I have to do *something* with it.) Alternatively, regular butter, coconut oil, or lard would probably all work well.
Sprinkle of cold water?
So, my crust was kind of... well, it tasted delicious when I was making it. MM. Given the ingredients, what else would you expect? However, it is definitely not perfect. Cocoa butter is darn solid at room temperature, (when I tried chilling it like you would a butter dough, it turned into a rock and I had to microwave it back to malleability) and the whole thing was rather sticky and greasy and tricky to roll out and I had to unstick it with a spatula and transfer it in pieces to my baking pan and then smush the pieces together to make a crust. The end result is, IMO, very tasty but very crumbly and a little dry. So a wiser chef than me will probably find a way to massively improve on this recipe.
But anyway, once you have some sort of crust, and you've filled it with your hot gooey chocolately mess and pressed a layer of cocoa nibs into the top, then pop it into your (preheated) oven at 375 F for 25 min. Let it cool, then put it in the fridge for an hour (this is what my chocolate tart instructions called for; I don't really know what would happen if you did something else.)
Then prepare yourself for a delicious dark chocolate experience!