TWD: Soft Chocolate Tart

This week’s TWD was chosen by Rachelle of Mommy? I’m Hungry!: soft chocolate and raspberry tart.  I think the combination of chocolate and raspberries would have been amazing, but I couldn’t justify the expense of the raspberries – I’ll have to revisit the tart this summer when raspberries are in season!  None of the other substitutions Dorie suggested appealed to me, so the chocolate shines alone in my tart this week.

 
I’ve been on a baking marathon the past few days.  I love all of my baking groups, but when the three of them fall in a 3-day span in one month, it’s a lot.  If I weren’t such a procrastinator I’d make some of the desserts ahead of time, but that didn’t happen this month.  Since I’d already made carrot cake and lemon meringue cupcakes over the weekend, I definitely considered making a mini tart.  I made mini tarts last week though, so instead I decided to take the opportunity to finally use my rectangular tart pan for the first time! 

I wasn’t sure how a recipe intended for a circular tart pan would work in my rectangular pan and I didn’t take the time to do the math to figure it out.  I made the full recipe for the tart dough, and wound up with just a tiny bit of extra dough.  I also made the full chocolate filling recipe and it was the perfect amount of filling.  If I’d used raspberries in the bottom of my tart, I’d probably have had enough filling to make a second small mini tart.  The recipe reminded me of making brownies a bit, even through the baking period as the tart puffed a bit in the shell.  I had to bake the tart about 7 minutes longer than Dorie instructed; at 30 minutes, my filling was still pretty gooey and my knife was definitely not “streaky.” 

My mom dropped by to bring me eggs from her chickens yesterday so I gave this tart to her to bring home but not before I cut a sliver to try and to photograph.  It was quite good – but very, very rich!  I had about 3 bites and that was plenty for me.  I loved the look of the rectangular tart but it was a little tricky to remove from the pan and fragile to move around.  Next time I’ll definitely have to find a rectangular platter of the same size to put it on.  Thanks to Rachelle for hosting this week!  You can find the recipe on her blog or on page 354 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.