If I were served this winter-holiday chocolate tart in a high-end restaurant, I’d be impressed and overjoyed. I’ve never said that about any of the guest-worthy things I’ve made before, have I?

This tart is best at room temperature. I’m no food safety expert, but I’m comfortable storing it at room temperature for a few days. In the long term, though, I’d suggest you refrigerate it.

Intro

This tart is celebratory and it is oh, so good. It’s so deeply centered on the chocolate, with just enough sweetness to keep you from asking Emperor Palpatine to complete your training. It requires a lot of steps, but none of them are tricky. You can do this!

Social Learning

Instead of a food processor, you can grind the nuts in a coffee grinder, in batches. In the processor, though, you could probably process in the cocoa and salt, maybe even right from the get go. I haven’t tried this, but it sounds efficient.

To pat the shell into the pan, use a flat-bottomed rocks glass or the like, regularly dipped into flour, to get it most of the way into place. Use your fingers to finish the job. (Note that this tart is gluten free; if that’s a concern, then dip the glass into cocoa instead of flour.) As you push the mixture into the fluted area of the pan, you will inevitably push some of the shell up and above the side of the pan. Cut that away with a butter knife, and add the cutaway pieces back into any areas that seem too thin. Take great care to ensure that the side of the shell is no thicker than the bottom, and that you have a very clean, right angle (rather than a slope) where the bottom meets the side.

All you can do is simply pour the chocolate into the shell. Once poured, you cannot stir it, or spread it, or significantly disturb it in any way, or you’ll get streaking or blemishes. Tiny bubbles may appear. If they do, you can carefully pop them with a toothpick – but only within the first minute. After that, your efforts will leave blemishes. Don’t worry, though, because the salt flakes will distract from any minor imperfections in the chocolate.

However, if calamity strikes and you wind up with a blemished surface, double down on it: take an offset spatula to it and start spreading it around like frosting. It will look very rustic, but so long as no one knows that that wasn’t the look you were going for, who cares?

The Backstory

This tart really stands out. The filling is somewhere between milk and dark chocolate. The level of sweetness is right on the nose: just dark enough and just sweet enough to leave you focused on the chocolate. The shell is barely sweet and the subtle flavor of the virgin coconut oil sits way, way back in the profile – almost unnoticeably. The texture is incredible. The filling is as soft as it can be without being too soft. It’s very rich, but there’s just the perfect amount of it, balanced by the shell, so that it’s not too rich. The shell is effortlessly tender and crumbly but not dry. Although the tart is superb on its own, I wouldn’t skip the vanilla ice cream. It somehow makes you taste the chocolate even more accutely.

The garnishes go with the tart quite well, although the sky’s the limit in terms of substitutions. I chose these becase they’re both Christmassy and woodsy.

Although you will need only a small fraction of the cranberries for garnish, I suggest you make the whole batch. If you decorate similar to the way I did, many of the slices won’t have garnishes, so it’s nice to have extra on hand for that. But maybe even more importantly, you would not believe how delicious sugared cranberries are! You will definitely snack up what you don’t use for the tart! Accompany them with a shortbread cookie and a cup of eggnog: stellar!

If you can’t find fresh cranberries (frozen will not work), no worries. The sky’s the limit in terms of decorations. “Golden berries,” are an excellent substitute flavor-wise, and their yellow color looks great with the chocolate. If you can find fresh red currants, 100% yes! Raspberries too, especially if you find absolutely perfect ones. If you can’t find rosemary, mint will do – but it won’t survive the sugaring process. Use it fresh, or consider spraying it lightly with edible gold paint. Nuts would be perfectly suitable in place of the chips.

And oh yeah, when it comes time to sprinkle on the salt, try just one flake to see what happens. If it melts into the chocolate, the tart isn’t set enough for the garnishes.

Outro: get the shakes

After several days, the tart will begin to thicken. It will still be good, but not as amazing as it originally was. Here’s what I suggest at that point: make shakes. Add maybe a half-cup of milk to the blender, then add a few chunks of tart, and blend. Keep blending in more chunks until you’ve added about one full serving of the tart. Then, blend in something sweet, like chocolate sauce, caramel, strawberry or cherry jam, or orange marmelade. Taste and adjust accordingly. Then, start blending in vanilla ice cream until you have the right consistency.

Chocolate Tart

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man!, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solic0ted by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: Delight Fuel, Gimme Some Oven, Jamie Oliver, NYT Cooking. Make It Like a Man! has been ranked by Feedspot as #14 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs!

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