Chili Chocolate Tart

This is an accidental tart that came from a request... I explain as I go BUT this is one of things I love most about cooking ~ how you stumble across culinary gold when you least expect it!

You will need...

for the pastry...
you can make your own or use Careme's Chocolate Short Crust... a plain homemade short crust would also work

To make your own pastry...
250g of plain flour
1/2 cup good coco
2 tsp vanilla honey
1 pich salt
150g butter softened
1/2 cup of dark brown sugar packed firm

 Cream the butter and sugar til creamy ~ so Nigella! And then add the coco and vanilla honey and beat some more... hmmm...

And now add the flour and pich of salt and combine ~ if the pastry does not pull together add a small amount of water  until just combined


Wrap in greasproof paper and chill for about an hour in the fridge or in the freezer for 20 minutes


Now while your pastry is resting you can get going on the filling

The Filling ~

This is really so easy... its actually a chocolate ganache with a twist

You will need...

600g pouring cream
400g 70% dark chocolate
1 cup of walnut pieces
2 medium heat chilies

Start by cutting up your chilies and poaching them in the cream over low heat for about 20 minutes ~ I expect that you would get a great flavour if you did this the night before... you would need to reheat the cream but worth a try

Scoop out the chilies ~ I gave mine a good squeeze to extract all of the chili oils before I removed them from the warm cream

And then break up the chocolate and add to the warm chili cream and gently whisk until all the chocolate disolves and goes glossy and smooth

This cream and chocolate mix is a ganache in its simplist form


Take this beautiful mixture and place it in the fridge to cool

Butter and then dust your flan dish with coco and and roll out your chilled pastry...

Its a tricky pastry to work with so go easy ~ remembering that over worked pastry gets quite tough and hard

I prick and blind bake my tart flans - and usually I place almonds in the base to blind bake so that I get some yummy warm roasted nuts for my work!




Now this is when a lack of almonds changed this dish ~ I only had walnuts in the pantry so I used these insted...

I then chilled the pastry case for about 15 minutes in the freezer and then added the walnuts to the base...



I had every intention of removing the walnuts after the baking but the smell coming from the oven was amazing and the oils from the heated walnuts oozed into the pastry... I did not have the heart to remove them....

After cooking the tart flan at 200c for about 20 minutes I popped the case out to cool. the house we live in has these gorgeous big window sills perfect for pie cooling ~ I can only just imagine all the pies and cakes that have cooled on these window ledges...

 

Now you will have a cool flan case with roasted walnuts in it and some lovely cool chili chocolate ganache

This stage is simple ~ pour the ganache over the walnuts and smooth over...

 

Put this darling into the fridge and chill for at least one hour ~ there should be some left in the bowl for a taste or two while you wait...

 

Now take a knife and smooth over the top of the tart ~ no harm to have a nibble now! Your tart should be set hard... take a hot knife and cut your tart... small slivers means you can have a second serve guilt free...

yours,

Honey Lady