Our first guest cook, aka cousin Lindsey, joined me in the kitchen this week with one request – chocolate! After flipping through a few magazines and scanning my favorite blogs, we saw this Chocolate Caramel Tart on Lottie + Doof and decided we just had to make it. I mean come on, look at those pictures!
To be honest, the idea of making caramel scared me a bit, but it’s not as difficult as you might think. Much easier than making marshmallows. And in the interest of transparency, I purchased a chocolate pie crust since we were pinched for time – don’t judge.
Caramel Filling:
1/2 cup hot water
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 tbs crème fraîche
Place water, sugar, and corn syrup in a large saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until it becomes dark amber in color (if you’re using a candy thermometer, bring to 350°F).
Remove pan from heat and very carefully add heavy cream (the mixture will bubble and may even splatter). Once incorporated, add the butter and crème fraîche and stir until smooth. Pour caramel filling into pie crust and allow to set, first at room temperature (10-20 minutes) and then in the refrigerator (at least 30 minutes).
Chocolate Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 1/2 oz extra bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used chocolate chips)
Place chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. Meanwhile, bring cream to a boil in a small sauce pan. Pour hot cream over the chocolate and leave for 2 minutes, then stir until smooth. Spread ganache over the tart and return to the fridge until set.
Remove tart from the refrigerator 5-10 minutes before serving. Cut into slices and sprinkle each with sea salt. Enjoy!
This tart is delicious, though a bit on the sweet side – I gulped down an entire glass of milk within the first few bites. Next time, I would like to spread a layer of toasted walnuts in the bottom of pie crust before pouring the caramel filling in. A little extra crunch and extra depth would really put this dessert over the edge. Plus I love the idea of a Turtle Tart! So, what did you think of the tart?
Baked in Ballard 
This looks delicious! I’ll bet a dollop of fresh, unsweetened whipped cream would complement this desert nicely and cut the sweetness a bit.
Have you ever made this in say a 12″ traditional tart pan? Perhaps less depth and wider surface area would make for a bit less of a super-sweet, caramel-y wallop. What about a graham cracker crust? That seems like it might be tasty as well.
I guess if I’d read the Lottie + Doof recipe I would have seen that it called for a tart pan…
Hey J man – Since I cheated a bit with the pie crust I skipped over the actual “tart” portion of this recipe. I highly recommend trying your hand at Lottie + Doof’s tart from start to finish!
Your thoughts on whipped cream and a graham cracker crust sound amazing. Hopefully you’ll post pictures on your blog 🙂
I don’t know how committed to blogging I am but I’m trying it out.
Started at a dumb time because Geo and I were doing a cleansing fast so no cooking. I started to come off of it over the weekend and have been eating mostly fruit since. Aside from making oatmeal and some brown rice the other day (separately of course…) I haven’t cooked anything in over 2 weeks. Once I get back to cooking I’ll start taking pictures and writing about what I’m doing.
You definitely have to cook in order to blog about cooking, but I know how difficult that can be sometimes. How did the cleanse go?