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chocolate tart days

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Chocolate tart

I came across this recipe last night as I was meal planning for the week. It was a recipe for a chocolate tart and orange ice cream.

We bought an ice cream machine shortly after Ollie was born. I guess we felt that the kitchen countertop wasn’t cluttered enough with bottles, hot water flask and a steriliser. Hah. This was on top of the red KitchenAid mixer we bought together with it as my birthday present from Donald. The day both toys arrived at my doorstep, I set both toys to work with a malt chocolate ice cream with Oreo cookies.

We had different kinds of ice cream for the next couple of months, thanks to a friend who got me the recipe book, A Perfect Scoop. I started envisioning loads of homemade ice cream for my kids, any flavour, no preservatives, creamy ones, sorbets. Oh the endless opportunities. Except that the hype died down ALOT when Ollie was a lot more mobile. The ice cream machine sat in the kitchen shelf for a good year or so before I took it out today. The recipe seemed simple enough so I figured it was time to use the ice cream machine again.

I enjoy watching Ollie eat my baked goods. Watching him spoon maple granola into his mouth; shove penne pasta into his mouth, smearing tomato sauce all over; nibbling cookies together on the sofa; digging into a blueberry muffin and picking out the blueberries to eat.

The in-laws (ILs) took Ollie out for the morning and would only come back after lunch so I figured I should have just enough time to put the ice cream to churn before Ollie came back. By the time I was done with the tart (i.e., out of the oven and cooling on the rack), almost 4 hours had gone by. I really enjoy cooking and baking. I would love to try more elaborate recipes if I had more time on my hand. For now, I have to be happy with simple things that doesn’t require “melting chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering hot water” or “sift the flours before folding/mixing them together”. I take heaps of short cuts and the recipe should not take me more than 20 minutes in real time. You know how recipes state “30 mins preparation + 20 mins cooking”. Sure, that’s if you are a pro at baking. That is professional time. Justine-time is whatever the stated time taken multiplied by at least 3 times. Yup.

I haven’t had the chance to eat the tart with the orange ice cream yet. I’ll be taking these babies to my grandma’s house tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes! Can’t wait!

Note:
1. If you don’t fancy paying for deep tart tins that you won’t use that often, you can get silicon mini cake trays from Daiso for S$2! I got 6 of them to bake a rainbow cake previously and they worked like a charm for these tarts. Very easy to pop the tart shells out.
Warm choc-orange tarts with orange ice cream
BBC GoodFood, Asian Edition, April 2012

Makes 8; Prep 1 hr 15 mins plus cooling, chilling and freezing; Cook 1 hr

250g dark chocolate
2 eggs, plus 1 white (from pastry)
140g caster sugar
85g melted butter
85g plain flour
little cocoa, to serve

For the pastry
350g plain flour
200g butter, cubed
100g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange
1 egg yolk, mixed with 1 tbsp water

For the ice cream
500ml whole milk
300ml double cream
5 yolks
140g caster sugar
zest of 2 oranges, plus juice of 1

1. To make the ice cream, heat the milk and cream in a pan to just below boiling. Stir together yolks and sugar, then whisk in the hot milk mixture. Return to pan, heating gently and stirring until thickened. Stir in the zest and juice, and cool. Churn, then freeze. Can be made up to a month ahead.

2. To make the pastry, whizz flour and butter in a food processor. Pulse in sugar. Pulse in zest with enough yolk mixture to bring pastry together. Roll out to line 8 individual deep tart tins. Chill for 30 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 190C. Fill tarts with baking parchment and baking beans, and bake blind for 15 mins. Remove beans and paper and bake for 10 mins more. Remove from oven and cool. Remove from tins and sit on a baking sheet. Adjust oven to 160C.

4. For the filling, melt chocolate in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Beat the 2 whole eggs, extra white and sugar until thick and pale – about 5 mins. Fold in the chocolate, melted butter and flour. Divide between the tarts. Let the mixture settle for a few mins, then bake for 25 mins. Cool for 10 mins. Dust the tarts with cocoa, top each with a scoop of ice cream.