Page: 269
Date Cooked: April 30, 2011
I happen to have a bit of a sweet tooth and I'm not sure why, but it has taken me a while to make a recipe from the dessert section of this cookbook. So in an effort to make a dessert and fill in that Quick Puff Pastry from the previous post, I settled on the flourless chocolate espresso tart.
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| Ingredients: "Quick Puff Pastry", unsalted butter, bittersweet chocolate, eggs, sugar, brewed espresso, almond meal, salt, cocoa powder (not shown), and confectioners' sugar (not shown) |
The first step was to bake the puff pastry created in the last post. I rolled out the pastry dough, fit it to the pan, pricked it all over with a fork, laid a buttered piece of aluminium foil on the dough and filled it with rice. The tart was then baked and removed to cool.
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| Left: Uncooked and pricked puff pastry Right: Cooked puff pastry |
As the puff pastry cooked, I began putting the filling together. I melted butter and chocolate until the mixture became smooth and then removed it from the heat. Egg yolks, sugar, espresso, and almond meal were subsequently added to the chocolate mixture.
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| Chocolate mixture with egg yolks, sugar, espresso, and almond meal |
In another bowl, I whipped the egg whites and salt till soft peaks formed. I don't know why I decided to do this step by hand, but I need to remember that for the next time a hand blender is definitely going to in the mix. Nonetheless, I am proud to say I whipped those egg whites into submission. The whites were then folded into the chocolate mixture.
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| Folding egg white peaks into chocolate mixture |
Finally, I poured the chocolate mixture into the tart and it was all baked together to yield the final product.
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| Chocolate Espresso Tart (with dusted cocoa powder and confectioners' sugar) |
There is one word for this tart: RICH. It tasted delicious but it was rich and dense. Considering it is a flourless tart, I was prepared for the dense taste, but the texture remained incredibly light and a bit airy. I really love chocolate and heck I drink espresso like it's my job so I was happy the flavor combination. Overall, I enjoyed the filling very much.
However, I mentioned in the last post that I could only comment on the Quick Puff Pastry once I made it. And...I wasn't very impressed with the puff pastry. There is no doubt that the pastry achieved a flaky texture, but it was thick and hard to eat! I found myself eating the filling and leaving the pastry on the plate.
Yet, when I delved into a piece of the tart at a later time, I found the puff pastry to be quite manageable and good. The filling of course remained delicious. So I guess I'm a bit on the fence about this recipe. Perhaps I need to give the Quick Puff Pastry another shot or just make the filling and put it into something else.
Enjoy!
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