Baking by Hand (30 page)
Authors: Andy King
ASSEMBLING THE TART
Pour all of the filling into the cooled tart shell. Bake at 350°F/180°C for 24 minutes. Rotate the pan, cover with aluminum foil and bake for another 10 minutes. The tart is done when the color has reached a golden brown and the middle of the tart puffs up a little. The top of the filling will feel firm.
Cool completely, and then chill for at least a couple of hours before removing it from the pan. To garnish, you can pipe melted chocolate into whatever design you like or you can simply drizzle melted chocolate back and forth over the surface with a fork. This tart can be served cold or at room temperature and keeps in the refrigerator for 1 week.
This tart is a great cold weather/early spring tart, as the bright lemon flavor helps to wake up the palate during a winter of heavy, rich foods. The coconut adds a bit of a tropical feel and was adapted from our macaroon cookie recipe to be nut-free and work as a chewy filling between curd and crust.
YIELD: One 8-in/20-cm tart
CRUST
8 oz/230 g all-purpose flour
2 oz/50 g granulated sugar
3 pinches fine sea salt
5 oz/140 g cold unsalted butter
1 oz/30 ml heavy cream
0.75 oz/20 g egg yolks
LEMON FILLING
1.5 tsp/5 g lemon zest
7.5 oz/215 g granulated sugar
3.25 oz/90 g egg yolks
4 oz/110 ml lemon juice
2.5 oz/65 g unsalted butter
Pinch of fine sea salt
COCONUT FILLING
1.25 oz/35 g egg whites
2 oz/50 g granulated sugar
Pinch of fine sea salt
1 tsp/0.5 g all-purpose flour
¼ tsp/4 ml vanilla extract
½ tsp/2 ml coconut extract
0.35 oz/10 g cream of coconut
2.25 oz/60 g shredded sweetened coconut, plus ½ cup/100 g, for garnish
For the crust, combine all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then cube your cold butter into ½-inch/1-cm chunks. Rub the butter into the flour-sugar mixture with your hands until you reach a coarse, cornmeal-type texture. There should be no lumps of butter, but the mixture should not have turned to a paste.
Next, combine the heavy cream and the yolks and mix together briefly with a fork or whisk. Add the egg mixture to your dry mixture, and combine it with your hands until an evenly mixed dough forms.
Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling out. It can also be chilled overnight but will need to be warmed up before rolling out or it will crack. This dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, well wrapped. It will also freeze well.
Roll the chilled dough out to ⅛ inch/3 mm thick and cut a 10-inch/25-cm circle out of the dough. Immediately fit this into an 8-inch/20-cm flan ring on a sheet pan. Trim the excess to be flush with the edge of the ring. Chill the shell for at least 30 minutes or even overnight. After chilling, prick the bottom of the shell with a fork to prevent crust bubbles.
Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
Blind-bake the shell by placing aluminum foil or parchment into the cavity of the tart shell and filling it to the edge with dried beans or rice. Bake for 30 minutes, remove the weights and foil or parchment paper and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the shell is golden brown and completely dried out. Cool the shell completely before assembling the tart.
For the lemon filling, rub the zest and sugar together in a 1-quart/1-L heavy-bottom stainless steel pot until fragrant and moist. Add the egg yolks to the sugar-zest mixture and whisk until combined. Add lemon juice, butter and salt.
Cook on medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula and taking care to drag the spatula along the bottom to avoid scorching or scrambling your eggs. Cook until the butter is melted and the mixture is warmed. Never stop stirring. If you have to stop stirring for some reason, remove the pot from the stove.
Once the mixture is melted and combined, your goal is to see steam rising from the surface, but never boil or even simmer the mixture. If you boil, you’ll coagulate the eggs and have scrambled the lemon curd. Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook until the curd coats the back of a spoon and leaves a trace when you run your finger along the spoon’s covered surface, about 10 minutes. If you want to use a thermometer, it will thicken around 175°F/80°C.
Strain the curd into a bowl and cover the surface immediately with plastic wrap to prevent the curd from forming a skin. Refrigerate it immediately. After cooling completely, remove the plastic wrap and store in a covered container. The curd should have stiffened at this point. Keep refrigerated until you are ready to fill the tart.
For the coconut filling, whisk the first seven ingredients in a bowl to combine, and then fold in the 2.25 ounces/60 g coconut. Store in the refrigerator. The filling can be made up to 3 days in advance. Keep cold until ready to fill the tart.
ASSEMBLING THE TART:
Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.
Toast the ⅓ cup/100 g coconut for about 8 minutes, or until the coconut starts to take on a toasty brown color but with still some white parts showing. Cool.
Fill the cooled shell with all of the coconut filling, spreading it along the bottom. Bake for 10 minutes, until the tips of the coconut start to turn toasty brown. Cool completely. Spread about 14 ounces/400 g of the chilled curd in the tart shell, right to the edge. Garnish with a 1-inch/2.5-cm band of toasted coconut around the outer edge of the tart. Serve immediately, or keep chilled until ready to serve. This tart can be fully prepared up to 2 days in advance.
While we often look to source produce and dairy locally, we are also able to source some of our chocolate from the area. Taza Chocolate in Somerville, Massachusetts, is a unique chocolatier. They produce an authentic stone-ground organic chocolate from bean to bar. In this tart, we use their 80 percent dark chocolate along with their chocolate-covered cocoa nibs for garnishing. Nibs are roasted cocoa beans, which in this case are freshly roasted and then covered in chocolate—highly addictive. To highlight the chocolate, we keep this tart simple. Fresh cream, eggs and sugar create a soft, rich chocolate custard lightly spiced with cinnamon, which keeps it from being too one-dimensional. If you can’t get your hands on Taza, use any high-quality dark chocolate.
YIELD: Eight 5-in/12-cm tartlets
CHOCOLATE SHORT DOUGH
6.2 oz/175 g all-purpose flour
3.5 oz/100 g unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ tsp/2 g fine sea salt
6.4 oz/180 g unsalted butter, softened
7.5 oz/215 g granulated sugar
¼ tsp/4 ml vanilla extract
0.5 oz/15 g egg yolks
CHOCOLATE CUSTARD
5.5 oz/155 g dark chocolate (preferably 80%)
1 lb 2 oz/510 ml heavy cream
1 ¼ tsp/3 g ground cinnamon
3.7 oz/104 g egg yolks
1.5 oz/45 g granulated sugar
1 tsp/5 ml vanilla extract
1 tbsp/10 g chocolate-covered cocoa nibs, for garnish (optional)
For the crust, combine the flour, cocoa powder and sea salt. Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl. Mix it with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until it is smooth and there are no lumps and a smooth paste has formed. Add the egg yolks and mix to combine. Add the dry ingredients and mix until all the ingredients are evenly combined to form a quite dark, almost black, tart dough. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes before rolling out. This dough can also be chilled overnight, but will need to be warmed up before rolling it out or else it will crack. Rolling this dough out a little on the warm side so that it is pliable helps keep it from cracking. However, if it does, it is easy to mold it back together by pushing it back with your fingertips. The chocolate short dough can be refrigerated for at least 3 days. It will also freeze well when wrapped tightly in plastic wrap.
Roll the dough out to a little thicker than ⅛ inch/3 mm thick on a floured surface and cut the circles out with a 5-inch/12-cm diameter cutter. Immediately fit these circles into ungreased mini pie pans; if you spray the molds, the dough will slip down the sides of the pans when baking. Repair any cracks if necessary with extra dough and your fingertips. The edge of the dough should be flush with the inside edge of the pie pan lip and should not extend out onto the lip. Trim as needed. After fitting all the shells into the pans, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or even overnight. Once the dough is chilled, prick the bottom of each shell with a fork to limit the bottom of the shell from bubbling up, as well as to cut down on shrinking.
Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
You do not need to blind-bake these shells with pie weights; the crust stays put! Bake for 12 minutes, rotate the pans and bake for about another 6 minutes. The smell of the chocolate crust will become fragrant and the crust should be dry. Cool completely before filling. Lower the oven temperature to 350°F/180°C.
For the chocolate filling, place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Pour the heavy cream into a heavy-bottom stainless steel pot and add the cinnamon. Whisk the cinnamon and cream together and heat until simmering. Do not boil. Pour this cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Put your yolks into a large bowl. Add the sugar and vanilla to the yolks and whisk. Temper ½ cup/120 ml of the hot chocolate mixture into the egg yolks, whisking the whole time in order to not cook the egg yolks. When it is combined, add the remainder of the hot chocolate mixture into the eggs, making sure to whisk the entire time. If anyone else is around, ask them to hold the bowl while you pour and whisk; otherwise, rest the bowl on a crumpled damp towel to prevent it from spinning. Then, strain this whole mixture through a fine-mesh sieve in order to remove any egg that may be solidified.
ASSEMBLING THE TART:
After straining, immediately fill the shells almost to the top. Do this close to the oven so that you will not have to walk far with a full tray of liquid tarts. Bake the tarts for 12 minutes. The middle of the custard should still be a little jiggly when you take them out.
Cool the tarts for about 10 minutes and then add a garnish of chocolate-covered nibs in the center of the tart, if you wish. Doing this soon after baking allows the nibs to slightly melt and adhere to the surface. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight before attempting to remove them from their pans. Serve cold or at room temperature.
When you have scrap pastry dough left over after putting together your pies or tarts, you should always make cookies. Every pie-baking grandmother knows this trick. It’s not rocket science, just good common sense, and an easy and fun way to use up the extra dough—not to mention a way to get two treats out of one!
