Chocolate dark as midnight. Caramel sauce – toffee-like with just a suggestion of burnt sugar. A superb marriage of flavours. CHOCOLATE AND SALTED DULCE DE LECHE TART is a very indulgent and very very French dessert. One sees it on the menu of discerning French restaurants. One adores eating it. But faced with the complex demands of making the perfect crust, the silky smooth chocolate filling and the smoky rich caramel sauce the perfect hostess pops into her favourite patisserie and picks up this tart.
This recipe takes the tears and pressure out of putting this dessert together and you can do it in about twenty minutes. It is an uncomplicated recipe.
Chop up some roasted nuts, chocolate and oat digestive biscuits in the food processor. Mix it with melted butter and press it into a loose-bottomed tart tin(a must). The can of dulce de leche is opened and two-thirds of it are poured over the chilled crust. Use the rest of the dulce de leche and pour it over cake or ice cream. Chocolate and cream are stirred together to make an unbelievably smooth and creamy sauce. Pour this over the dulce de leche and tuck the tart into the fridge to chill. Sprinkle the top of the pie with the finest flakiest sea salt in your pantry. Malden salt would be absolutely perfect.
Keep the tart refrigerated until you are ready to serve it. Cut narrow slices (it is incredibly rich) and quickly slide the tart onto the plate. The dulce de leche will immediately slip out of the cut tart to form a fantastic sauce.
If you are an enterprising cook you could turn this into your own personal production by making the oat digestive biscuits and caramel sauce yourself.
| DECIDEDLY DECADENT CHOCOLATE AND SALTED DULCE DE LECHE TART | Print |
- 1 cup (100 g) hazel, walnut or almond nuts.
- 2½ cups (250 g) oat digestive biscuits(or use graham crackers).
- 14 oz (400 g) dark chocolate (70% cocoa) coarsely chopped. To be divided.
- ¾ cup (6 0z. 175 g) unsalted butter
- ¾ cup (200 g ) double cream
- ¾ cup (200 g) dulce de leche (from a 300 g tin of dulce de leche)
- pinch of flaked sea salt
- Preheat oven to 400 F. Spread the nuts on a baking tray and roast in oven for 5 or more minutes giving the tray a good shake halfway through, until they are golden brown. Remove from oven and leave to cool.
- Butter your 9 inch (23 cm( loose-bottomed tart tin ( 9 inch) very well.
- Put the nuts, the biscuits and about ¾ cup (100 g 3½ oz) of chocolate in food processor. Pulse until chopped. You want a crumbly mixture, NOT a powder. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside.
- Melt butter in a small pan, then begin to pour into the biscuit mixture. Don't pour it all in at once. You might not need the entire quantity of butter depending on the type of biscuits you use; just enough to hold together when pressed in your tart tin.
- Tip the mixture into your tart tin and press into the bottom and up the sides to make a crust. You'll find using the flat bottom of a measuring cup handy for pressing down the bottom of the crust.
- Chill in the fridge while you make the filling
- Put the cream in a medium sized pan and carefully heat until a few bubbles form on the surface and it threatens to come to the boil. IMMEDIATELY remove from the heat.
- Add the remaining coarsely chopped chocolates and stir until the chocolate is melted. If the chocolate is not melted completely put the pan on the still warm burner but DO NOT turn on the heat. Also, be careful not to get any water in your chocolate mixture at any time.
- Remove the tart tin from the fridge. Spoon the dulce de leche over the biscuit base and use a spatula to spread out evenly.
- Pour over the chocolate mixture and return to the fridge.
- After about 20 minutes or so sprinkle the sea salt over the top of the tart. Return to the fridge to set fully.
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