Flourless Chocolate Espresso Tart

Recipe: Flourless Chocolate Espresso Tart
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!