the dark ganache chocolate tart...Yummy!

Hi guys,

As promised , we are going to take a look at a simple and very nice tasting tart . The recipe is very , very easy and we'll have the opportunity to study 4 basic important techniques :

Dough 1 : the tart dough*
Dough 2: rolling a dough and setting in the mould **
Cooking 1: Pre-baking an empty dough *
Cream & mix 1: elaborating a dark chocolate ganache *

Concerning the tart dough techniques (making, rolling , cooking), once mastered, you will be able to realize any sweet tart you wish. For the ganache , same thing; this cream is very common and it is included in tons of pastry cakes.

Let 's go for the dough: "Dough 1 technique"

INGREDIENTS : 1 TART SERVING 8 PAX

250 GR (9 OZ) flour
125 GR( 4,5 OZ) unsalted butter
10 GR (0,4 OZ) caster sugar
1 egg yolk
5 GR (0,16 OZ OR 2 pinches) table salt
5 CL (1,5 FLOZ) cold water

TECHNIQUE:

Sieve the flour on your working surface
cut your butter in small pieces
with the tips of your fingers , start mixing butter and flour until you get something looking like yellow sand . This is important in order to have a correct mixing later.

Then, shape a kind of well with this sandy mix
Inside the well , add the egg yolk, sugar, salt and the very cold water ( very important , i'll tell you why later).
With the finger tips of one hand , start making circle moves in the middle of the well and with the opposite hand push a bit of flour mix toward the center.

Once the flour is mixed , is it now very important that you mustn't knead the dough!! Once the flour is wet , the gluten get in action with the kneading and your dough will definitely become too elastic ! The result would be that you couldn't roll it properly.
Instead , just spread the dough on the table exactly like you would spread butter with the hand. Set you dough in a ball and make 1 more spread. This action will (allowed twice)properly mixes the ingredients without allowing the gluten to enter in action. your dough is ready!!

Now you have to control if the consistance is ok...Just pinch the dough with two finger ....If the dough breaks that means you have to add a bit of water otherwise it will break during the rolling phase. If the dough doesn't break appart when you pinch it , that means no further problems for rolling it.
Wrap your dough ball in a plastic film and leave it for 30 mn in the fridge( to avoid the even small gluten action ). By the way, the purpose of the cold water in the dough is to a avoid the sticky gluten action.

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As your nice dough is cooling down, you will now prepare your dark chocolate ganache: Cream & mix 1 technique.

INGREDIENTS : 1 TART SERVING 8 PAX

10 CL (3 FL OZmilk
20 CL ( 7 FL OZ) liquid cooking cream
1 whole egg ( do not include in a regular ganache mix)
300 GR(10,5 OZ) confectionery chocolat (52 to 54 % cocoa)
40 GR (1,4 OZ) caster sugar
1 splited vanilla pod

TECHNIQUE:

Crush your chocolate in small parts (better melting process)
In a pan , bring together to boil the milk, cream, vanilla pod and sugar
At boiling point, remove from fire and pour the chocolate pieces in the pan
stir the mix slowly until it gets creamy and shiny with no lumps at all.
leave the ganache slowly cooling down at room temperature.

INFO:It is important not to heat chocolate over 56°C (133°F) in every recipe otherwise it would become matt and ugly. For chocolate sweets it would have a bad texture because extreme temperature split the chocolate emulsion appart).

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Now your dough is cooled , here comes the rolling part.........

Skirt your mould or circle in order to set the dough on it.
Sprinkle a bit of flour on your very dry working table before laying your dough on it.
Sprinkle the dough and start flattening a dough in a circle shape with the hand.
Then , take the roll and keep in mind that you want to keep the circle shape at all times.
Push slowly on your roll , make small moves and often turn your dough (1/8 round ) to make sure it doesn't stick to the table(sprinkle more flour if necessary).
If the circle goes wrong , it means that the strength of the forearms is not balanced enough(hardest part , indeed!)
lay it properly in the mould and make small holes with a fork all over the bottom to ease the cooking of the dough and avoid rising.

Once ready , cool your tart bottom for 20 minutes in the fridge before the next step......

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Cooking 1: Pre-baking an empty dough *

OK. Now you're done with the ganache and the dough is cold. As I told you earlier , chocolate hates high temperatures and dough need to be well cooked..... That means , we will have to bake the dough alone!
Every time you will need to fill a tart or a quiche with a preparation needing no further ( or a really short ) cooking , we will use this Pre-baking technique in order to have a crispy dough which tastes great with raw fruits , whipped cream and so on...
To perform this , we will need a bag of dry beans , rice or peas wrapped in aluminium foil . This will maintain the dough while cooking.

Put your tart in a hot oven at 190°C ( 380°F) for 5 minutes then remove the beans / peas wrap and leave baking till you get a dough similar to the next pictures..

We are almost done.........The last thing to do is is assembling the tart.

We can add the remaining whole egg to the ganache and whisk till we have an homogeneous cream. Fill the tart dough up to the top.Bake your tart another 10 minutes at 160°C ( 300°F) so the ganache just sets . As I told you before , chocolate hates high temperatures and this manner will shorten the heat exposition sa much as possible . Leave your Dark chocolate tart to cool down for one hour or so and enjoy!!!