Holly Bakes: Tarte Noir

Holly is the proud Mama of two sweet boys (almost 5 years old and one 7 months) who both enjoy hanging out in the kitchen and sneaking naps and tastes of what is being made. She has been baking and cooking since she was seven years old and has always enjoyed feeding others. Holly’s favorite shows to watch with the boys include Ratatoullie and Good Eats – both requests from her oldest kiddo. (More after post)

Tarte Noire. Even the name of this simple chocolate tart evokes a sense of wonder and mystery. Simple, everyday ingredients of flour, sugar, salt, butter, and egg yolk combine into a buttery, sweet crust that is the absolute perfect foil for the filling made of only chocolate, cream, and more butter.

The whole experience of making this kept reminding me of old black and white movies – like something you would serve at a wrap party in old Hollywood, maybe for Casablanca. This dessert is so simple to make using everyday kitchen staples (at least in my kitchen anyway there must always be chocolate). Here though the ingredients elevate each other to something that is nothing short of cosmic perfection. This tart is exactly that.

As soon as I got my copy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours I read through all the recipes, but I just kept coming back to this one. It sounded like the most perfect and sublime combination of the buttery crust and the smooth, creamy center. Dorie herself describes this as “one of the most sophisticated tarts in a Parisian pastry chef’s repertoire, it is also the simplest – and the darkest, sleekest and chicest too.” For obvious reasons I was intrigued – but I kept putting off making it until I had chocolate that I thought would be “worthy” of a recipe with such a reputation.

For my debut as a Blake Baker here on Blake Makes I knew that I had to make this dessert to share with everyone because it reminded me of Blake’s hometown of New Orleans. I haven’t made it to New Orleans yet, but this tart reminds me exactly of what New Orleans has always meant to me. Special, mysterious, intriguing and decadent. The planets and stars all aligned and I was lucky enough to win some of the Amano Chocolate, made here in Utah and hand-crafted with care and passion, from none other than Blake. Obviously, I’m not one to argue with fate since all signs were whispering to me to make this (and eat it for breakfast – oh, alright, and lunch too).

Dorie suggests that when making this tart, which is the “exemplar of understated elegance” that you must use only the very finest chocolate that you enjoy “eating out of hand” since what you will taste is the flavors of the chocolate itself. The Amano Chocolate showed beautifully in the Tarte Noire, though not as dark as perhaps some other chocolates would have shown, but the flavors were incredible and the chocolate was rich and pure with a beautiful reddish-brown color.

Here’s the recipe. Don’t wait as long too make this as I did, but get yourself some really good chocolate. As Dorie suggests in the recipe “purists” will not want to serve this with anything on it or distracting from the flavor. I am a purist so I followed her guidance and let me tell you, this just doesn’t even need anything else but a fork – and perhaps some privacy while you savor your slice (oh, fine, the whole thing then – but, seriously, try to pace yourself).

So, here’s looking at you, kid.

Sweet Tart Dough (Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours)

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons) 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 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 this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change – heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

TO PRESS THE DOUGH INTO THE PAN: 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. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

TO FULLY BAKE THE CRUST: 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. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake for another 8 minutes or so, or until it is firm and golden brown – just make sure to keep a close eye on the crust’s progress – it can go from golden to way too dark in a flash.) Transfer the tart pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature before filling.

TO PATCH, IF NECESSARY: If there are any cracks in the baked crust, patch them with some of the reserved 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. Bake for another 2 minutes or so, just to take the rawness off the patch.

Tarte Noire (Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours)

For the Filling:

• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• ½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 1 9-inch tart shell made with Sweet Tart Dough (From Baking: From My Home to Yours – recipe above)

Put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and have a whisk or a rubber spatula at hand.

Bring the cream to a boil, then pour half of it over the chocolate and let it 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 of the bowl and working your way out in 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. (The ganache can be used now, refrigerated or even frozen for later; see Storing.)

Pour the ganache into the crust and, holding the pan with both hands, gently turn the pan from side to side to even the ganache. Refrigerate the tart for 30 minutes to set the ganache, then remove the tart from the fridge and keep it at room temperature until serving time. (Note – don’t cut right into it because the ganache won’t be set yet).

Makes 8 servings.

SERVING: Purists will want to enjoy the tart at room temperature and au naturel. Having gone to pains to use great chocolate for the tart, you might want to show it off solo. However, like all good things chocolate, the tart is lovely with just a little lightly whipped very sparingly sweetened cream. I wouldn’t serve this with ice cream – the contrast between the thick room-temperature filling and the frozen ice cream would be too jarring.

STORING: The tart should be served the day it is made. However, the ganache can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. When you are ready to use it, allow it to come to room temperature, then heat it gently in a microwave oven, using 5-second spurts of heat and checking on its progress vigilantly, until it is pourable. Or you can put the bowl of ganache in a large bowl of hot water and stir every 10 seconds until it can be poured. You can even freeze the ganache, tightly covered, for up to 2 months. Thaw it overnight, in the refrigerator, bring it to room temperature and then warm it in a microwave oven or bowl of hot water until it is pourable.

More About Blake Baker Holly

She is married to a full-fledged action sports junkie who is constantly jumping out of airplanes and off bridges and cliffs, in between is day job as a flight instructor at an indoor skydiving facility. On her blog, PheMOMenon, she likes to write about baking, cooking and family. Holly also likes to make really bad jokes that she realizes are only probably only funny to her. She admits to having a strange sense of humor, honestly inherited from her own mother, that she blames for her penchant for thinking bad jokes are funny, simply because they are so bad. You’ve been warned.