August Daring Baker Challenge

Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart

This months Daring Baker challenge hails from Eric Kayser’s Sweet and Savory Tarts - Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart. I often have a little debate with myself which I like better caramel or chocolate, and I’m still not sure, but hey what does it matter they are both present in this tart!

I was pretty sure that this would be our kind of pudding, and it was. It’s made in either a 9" round or 10" square tart tin. I didn’t have a square tin, although I’ve found one online, and although I’d expected it to take weeks to arrive, it came with the postman just as I put this tart in the fridge!

I thought this was a fun tart to make, nothing difficult, just a few stages. The tart comprises a chocolate pastry, caramel layer, then chocolate cream on top, which is finally scattered with fragments of caramel.

I made the pastry one day, lined the tin the next, than baked it the third day. It was a shortbread-y pastry flavoured with hazelnuts and cinnamon, and a good amount of icing sugar as well. It was a very soft dough, and I wondered if it would roll out ok, but it did, so I needn’t have worried. I love cinnamon and chocolate so thought the dough tasted gorgeous!

After baking and cooling the pastry in the tin it was time to do the caramel layer which is a normal sugar caramel with cream and butter, then eggs and flour are added and baked in the cooled chocolate case. The flour and egg mixture turned a fabulous amber caramel into something a bit more murky, but it looked ok when it came out of the oven.

The chocolate layer is added when the caramel is cold. Just a simple melting of milk chocolate and folding it through whipped cream.

The final topping is a caramel decoration, which was a quick job. It’s just a sugar caramel that you pour onto a baking sheet and let it harden and go cold then break up into little crispy sugar shards.

We really liked this pudding, but if you make it be warned a small slice is all you need, as it’s really rich as a whole - absolutely yummy rich =) This would be a lovely special occasion tart to round of a party in small slices. I had a bit leftover, and kept it in the fridge for a couple of days, and although the texture of the mousse and caramel changed into something a lot firmer and fridge cold, it was still good.

I should really confess that I had to buy the book that this tart came from, an a lovely book it is too. Now which recipe will I make to use the other half of the chocolate pastry, hmm…

Thanks to Veronica and Patricia for this months delicious challenge you will find the recipe by clicking their names, and if you'd like to see some more entries please click the Daring Bakers Blogroll and read away.