Discover the perfect blend of smooth, creamy chocolate and buttery pastry in this classic French Chocolate Tart Recipe.
French chocolate tart, also known as “tarte au chocolat,” is an indulgent dessert that will satisfy any chocolate lover’s craving. This classic French pastry consists of a rich, creamy chocolate tart filling encased in a buttery, flaky, shortbread crust.
This French chocolate tart recipe is super simple to make with basic ingredients. The result is a crisp base with a velvety chocolate custard filling.
Ingredients
- Milk AND Dark Chocolate
- Double cream
- Egg Yolks
- Sugar
- Vanilla
- 1 9 inch tart crust
The tart crust for this tart recipe is my pate sablee recipe, which I use for all my tarts. It’s a crisp buttery tart shell, and delicious. You can make it or even use a shop-bought tart crust if it is easier.
To Make The Shortcrust Pastry
This tart crust can be whipped up quickly in the bowl of a food processor, saving a lot of mess.
Begin by measuring out the ingredients for the tart crust.
Add the flour and the icing sugar to the processor and pulse a few times on the pulse setting to combine.
Add the salt, chilled butter, egg yolk and 1 tbsp of cold water to the processor and pulse until it comes together into a dough
Remove from the food processor and bring together, shaping into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and let it relax and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, its ready to roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface and line your tart tin; use a tart pan with a removable bottom so you can remove the shell with ease.
Once the tart pan has been lined with the dough, it goes back into the fridge to chill and relax for 1 hour. Afterwards, it is ready to blind bake. I like to do this slightly differently using either sugar or rice to fill the uncooked shell instead of pie weights. Using parchment paper I line the tart shell and fill it with sugar or rice. I find the sugar/rice gets into the folds of the dough better than pie weights.
I also like to bake the pie crust at a lower temperature for a longer time – I find this helps to minimize shrinkage. Blind baking the crust for 1 hour at 140 helps to keep the crust a nice golden brown colour too. Once it has cooked, remove the sugar/rice and let the baked tart shell cool completely on a wire rack before filling.
Making The Chocolate Filling
The rich chocolate ganache for this tart is a chocolate custard. It is a crème anglaise that has milk chocolate and dark chocolate added to it to make a rich chocolate tart filling. The smooth ganache is a chocolate lover’s dream.
To make the creme anglaise, first the heavy cream is put in a small saucepan on a medium heat until it starts to bubble at the edges.
- Whilst the cream is heating up, the egg yolks are whisked in a medium bowl with the sugar until pale.
- Once the cream has heated through, slowly add the hot cream to the eggs whilst whisking continuously
- Add the mixture back to the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Keep stirring the mixture. I like to use a rubber spatula for this instead of a wooden spoon as it gets right into the sides of the pan. This should take around 5 minutes or so.
- Once the custard is thickened its time to add the chopped chocolate.
Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add to the cream and let it stand off the heat for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to melt.
- Stir in the melted chocolate and vanilla extract then once uniform, pass the chocolate mixture through a sieve into a measuring jug for an extra smooth silky chocolate ganache filling.
The chocolate cream can be left to cool slightly before pouring into the tart shell. Once the tart shell is filled the custard tart can be placed into the fridge to set. This usually takes around 2 hours for the filling to set properly. When ready to serve, remove from the fridge around 30 minutes before to allow the tart to come to room temperature
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French Chocolate Tart Recipe
Equipment
- 1 9 inch fluted tart pan
- 1 saucepan
- 1 rubber spatula
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 set of digital scales
- 2 glass bowls
- 1 fine mesh sieve
- 1 set of measuring spoons
Ingredients
- For The Shortcrust
- 200 g plain flour
- 125 g cubed unsalted butter
- 75 g icing sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- pinch of salt
- 1-2 tbsp water
- For The Chocolate Filling
- 150 g dark chocolate
- 150 g milk chocolate
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 300 ml double cream
Instructions
- For the tart crust
- Begin by measuring out the ingredients for the tart crust.
- Add the flour and the icing sugar to the processor and pulse a few times on the pulse setting to combine.
- Add the salt, chilled butter, egg yolk and 1 tbsp of cold water to the processor and pulse until it comes together into a dough
- Remove from the food processor and bring together, shaping into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and let it relax and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, its ready to roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface and line your tart tin; use a tart pan with a removable bottom so you can remove the shell with ease.
- Let the crust now relax in the fridge for 1 hour before blind baking.
- Blind bake at 140℃ for 1 hour until golden. Let cool completely before filling.
- For the Chocolate Filling
- The rich chocolate ganache for this tart is a chocolate custard. It is a crème anglaise that has milk chocolate and dark chocolate added to it to make a rich chocolate tart filling. The smooth ganache is a chocolate lover’s dream.
- To make the creme anglaise, first the heavy cream is put in a small saucepan on a medium heat until it starts to bubble at the edges.
- Whilst the cream is heating up, the egg yolks are whisked in a medium bowl with the sugar until pale.
- Once the cream has heated through, slowly add the hot cream to the eggs whilst whisking continuously
- Now the mixture is added back to the saucepan and cooked over medium-low heat until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Keep stirring the mixture. I like to use a rubber spatula for this instead of a wooden spoon as it gets right into the sides of the pan. This should take around 5 minutes or so.
- Once the custard is thickened its time to add the chopped chocolate.
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add to the cream and let it stand off the heat for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to melt.
- Stir in the melted chocolate and vanilla extract then once uniform, pass the chocolate mixture through a sieve into a measuring jug for an extra smooth silky chocolate ganache filling.
- The chocolate cream can be left to cool slightly before pouring into the tart shell. Once the tart shell is filled the custard tart can be placed into the fridge to set and firm up. This usually takes around 2 hours for the filling to set properly. When ready to serve, remove from the fridge around 30 minutes before to allow the tart to come to room temperature