Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Hello All!! So its time for my first official recipe post! Chocolate and raspberry happens to be one of my fave combinations, so I found this recipe on epicurious and decided to give it a try. It turned out to be delicious!! The crust is kinda crunchy like a cookie and is chocolatey and sweet, but adds a nice little crunch in contrast to the creamy filling. Generally, when I bake, I try to incorporate booze, so for this recipe, I added my favorite liquor (Chambord- a sweet raspberry liquor) to the raspberry filling....I highly recommend it!! If you go this route, make sure to add a bit more jam than the recipe calls for to counter the extra liquid.....nobody wants soupy raspberry filling. Anyway, Im still experimenting with how Im going to set up my posts, but for now, the actual recipe is below with my comments/suggestions/experiences added in. I hope you enjoy it much as my coworkers and I did!!!

Hailey

Ingredients

Crust
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 tablespoons cold water
1 large egg yolk

6 tablespoons raspberry jam

Chocolate Filling
1 cup whipping cream
4 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 1/2-pint baskets fresh raspberries
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Preparation

For Crust:

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa and salt in medium bowl. Add butter and rub in, using fingertips, until mixture resembles coarse meal. add water and egg yolk and mix in with fork until well incorporated. Gather dough into rectangle chill 20 minutes. (Can be prepared 4 days ahead. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)

Comments: This is similar to making pie crust from scratch. I mixed the dry ingredients and then cut the butter into tablespoons and then cut those into fourths. When it says "rub in" it means just that....take a chunk of the butter and roll it between your fingertips and it will break into smaller pieces of butter while getting coated with the dry ingredients. Keep doing this until the chunks of butter are about the size of a pea. Generally when you think you are done, keep going. There will inevitably be pieces of butter that you missed that are still quite large. Also, I had to add about 2 teaspoons of water extra to make the dough come together. If you decided that the amount of water in the recipe is not enough for your dough, be sure to add more water in VERY small amounts. It doesnt take much water to make a big difference, so if you add to much, your dough will become way to moist and will be sticky and hard to roll out. The dough should just barely come together into a ball and should show some cracks, which is what you want.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour 13 3/4 x 4-inch rectangular pan with 1-inch-high sides and removable bottom. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 15x6-inch rectangle. Peel off 1 waxed paper sheet. Invert dough into prepared pan, press evenly to fit. Freeze until firm, about 10 minutes. Peel off second waxed paper sheet. Trim edges.
Line crust with foil; fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until crust is set, about 12 minutes. Remove foil and beans. Bake until crust just begins to darken around edges, piercing with toothpick if crust bubbles, about 12 minutes longer. Remove from oven; maintain oven temperature. Spread jam over bottom of crust. Bake until jam is set, about 3 minutes. Transfer pan to rack; cool completely.

For Filling:

Bring cream to boil in heavy small saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Transfer chocolate ganache to bowl and refrigerate until chilled but not firm, about 45 minutes or less
Using electric mixer, beat ganache until very thick and semifirm. Spread ganache over jam in crust. (Can be prepared 8 hours ahead. Refrigerate.) Arrange raspberries atop ganache. Stir powdered sugar and cocoa in bowl. Sift over tart.

Comments: You can tell when the ganache is getting to the thickness you want because it will start to hold the wave pattern from the mixer. As for sifting powdered sugar and cocoa onto the top, the moisture from the chocolate and from the refrigeration absorbed all of the sugar I sifted on my tart. If you decide to add this decorative touch, make sure you do it right before presenting/serving.