Better Late Than Never

photo: Mike Marques

I know, I know. Two months plus? What was I thinking??? I got so wrapped up in school, but thankfully the semester is over and I have a month off. so now the posts will (hopefully) fly fast and furious. The first thing I want to post is a tart I made for Thanksgiving. We went to my cousin's and her husband's house and hung with his parents, my aunt and uncle, my other cousin and his wife and kids.

I made a few desserts, the biggest hit was this Chocolate Crunched Tart. I was psyched because I finally got to use my tart pan and it worked fabulous. Thanks, mike, for taking the pictues!

Sweet Tart Dough from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan
1 and ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (1 stick and 1 tablespoon) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk
Put the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in – you should have some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas. Stir the yolk, just enough to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses – about 10 seconds each – until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach that stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change – heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and very lightly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.
Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan, using all but one little piece of dough, which you should save in the refrigerator to patch any cracks after the crust is baked. Don’t be too heavy-handed- press the crust in so that the edges of the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that the crust loses its crumbly texture(my dough was wet, I don’t know what she was talking about – not crumbly at all and it turned out fine). Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer; before baking (I froze mine for about 8 hours).
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. Patch if necessary.*
Bake for another 8 minutes or so, until it is firm and golden brown. Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.
*To patch a crust: If there are any cracks in the baked crust, patch them with some of the raw dough as soon as you remove the foil. Slice off a thin piece of the dough, place it over the crack, moisten the edges and very gently smooth the edges into the baked crust.

Chocolate –Crunched Caramel Tart from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

For the Caramel:
Scant ½ cup heavy cream
½ cup sugar, sifted (I didn’t bother)
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 tablespoons salted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temp
Pinch of salt if you are not using salted butter

Getting Ready: Because you have to work quickly once the sugar caramelizes, you should have all the ingredients for the caramel measured out and at hand before you start. Also have a medium heatproof bowl at hand to hold the hot caramel.
To Make the Caramel: Bring the heavy cream to a boil.
Meanwhile, put a medium skillet, preferably nonstick, over medium heat and sprinkle in about 3 tablespooons of the sugar. When it melts, stir it with a wooden spatula or fork and sprinkle over another 3 table spoons. When that sugar is melted, add the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar – the sugar in the pan may already have started to color, and that’s fine. Stir in the corn syrup and boil the syrup until it reaches a deep caramel color – it will probably begin to smoke, and that’s normal.

Stand back from the skillet and stir in the butter (and salt if you’re using it). The caramel will bubble furiously and may spatter, so make sure you’re away from the action. When the butter is in, add the warm cream – the caramel will bubble furiously again. Lower the temperature just a tad and let the caramel boil for just 2 minutes. Pour the seething caramel into the heatproof bowl and set aside while you make the ganache. *You may decide to substitute caramel topping for this*

For the Ganache:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
½ stick unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
To Make the Ganache:
Put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and have a whisk or rubber spatula at hand.
Bring the cream to a boil, then pour half of it over the chocolate and let sit for 30 seconds. Working with the whisk or spatula, very gently stir the chocolate and cream together in small circles, starting at the center and working your way in increasingly larger concentric circles. Pour in the remainder of the cream and blend it into the chocolate, using the same circular motion. When the ganache is smooth and shiny, stir in the butter piece by piece. Don’t stir the ganache any more than you must to blend the ingredients – the less you work it, the darker, smoother, and shinier it will be.
Cover the ganache with a piece of plastic wrap, pressing the plastic against the surface of the chocolate to create an airtight seal. Set aside at room temperature.

To Assemble the Tart:
¾ cup honey- roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped (I left mine whole)
1 9-inch tart shell (I sent the recipe before this one), fully baked and cooled
Using a small rubber spatula, stir the peanuts into the caramel. If the caramel has cooled and is too thick to spread easily, gently warm it in a microwave oven using 3 second heat spurts. Spread the caramel over the bottom of the tart shell; you’ll have a thin layer. Refrigerate the tart for 15 minutes to set the caramel.
Check the ganache. If it has thickened and is no longer pourable, warm it tin 3 second bursts in the microwave.
Rap the bowl to break any surface bubbles, pour the ganache over the caramel and jiggle the tart pan to even it.
Refrigerate the tart for 30 minutes-no longer-then keep it at room temperature until serving time. Best eaten the day it’s made.