This seasonal chocolate tart has a gingerbread crust, a 5 minute chocolate filling, and is topped with fresh berries and fruit. It tastes rich, decadent, and reminds you of warm winter spices! Follow the recipe.
Ingredients:
Tart Base:
| 200g/ 1 1/4 cup | Flour |
| 50g/ 1/2 cup | Almond Flour |
| 50g/ 1/4 cup | Brown Sugar |
| 100g, unsalted/ 0.45 cups | Butter |
| 50ml/ 1/4 cup | Maple Syrup |
| 1/2 tsp | Baking powder |
| 1/2 tsp | Salt |
| 1 tsp each | Nutmeg & Cinnamon |
| 1/2 tsp | Ginger |
Filing:
| 200g, milk+ 100g, dark | Chocolate |
| 100ml/ 1/2 cup | Heavy Cream |
| 1 tbsp | Butter |
| 1 tsp | Instant Coffee |
| 1 tsp | Cornflour |
Steps:
Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add maple syrup and mix.
Sieve all the dry ingredients together into the brown and mix into a rough, shaggy, dough. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate 15 min.
Remove the chilled dough and roll it out between 2 sheets of parchment paper to 1/2 cm thick, and drape over a buttered tart pan. Chill for another 30 minutes.
Remove the tart pan and trim off the excess dough and adjust thickness with hand if necessary.
Line the tart pan back with the parchment paper and line it with baking weights.
Bake at 180C for 10 minutes. Remove beans and parchment and bake another 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring continuously. Add cream slowly until mixed. Add butter, coffee, and cornflour, whisking well until mixed and smooth.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the tart pan and smooth with an offset spatula. Bake for 5 minutes.
Let the tart cool for 20 minutes at room temperature. Meanwhile, cut up fresh berries and fruit. Decorate the tart with fruit and chill for an hour to set before serving.
Notes:
1. If you don’t have almond flour, you can use ground up oats or any flavourless flour, or just use all normal flour.
2. If you don’t have maple syrup, you can use:-
- 1/4 cup honey, or
- 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tablespoon water, heat up in a saucepan until sugar is just dissolved, and add 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice and cool.
3. If you don’t have brown sugar, use caster sugar, but there will be flavour diff.
4. If you don’t have unsalted butter, you can use normal salted butter, and just skip the extra 1/2 tsp of salt in the crust
5. You can adjust the spices as you like, rotate between ginger, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc according to your wish, or omit all the spices for a plain crust.
6. When choosing the chocolate, you can pick dark or milk chocolate, or a 50/50 mixture as we have done. Using all milk chocolate will make your tart much sweeter, and all dark will be more complex but slightly bitter. Better quality chocolate will make a tastier tart
7. Instant coffee mixed in with your chocolate filling makes your tart richer, but if you don’t have it you can skip it
8. If you don’t have parchment/baking paper, you can use 2 plastic bags instead, or just roll out on a floured surface with a rolling pin. We suggest using sheets because using extra flour can change the texture of the tart
9. If the dough is too dry, you can add a splash of milk
10. If you don’t have baking beans, you can use uncooked rice or beans(rajma, channa, etc) to weigh down the dough instead
11. If you don’t have a tart pan, you can use a normal cake tin, or a round glass dish instead, just butter the pan before use. You will not be able to de-mould the entire tart but it will taste the same.
12. No-oven/no-cook alternatives to this tart:-
- For the base, you can use ground up 400g of digestive biscuits, spices and 1/4 cup of melted butter and combine until a crumbly mixture forms. Spread the mixture in your tart pan and press down tightly on the bottom and sides like a cheesecake base. Chill it for 30 minutes. This base does not need to be baked to be eaten.
- For a no-cook filling, you can omit the cornflour in the chocolate filling and pour the mixture directly over this base and chill for 2 hours to set. The no-cook filling goes hard faster and has a different texture
