h o m e * e c o n o m i c s

my black heart and a chocolate caramel tart

For me, the strangest thing about being older but not yet old is how deeply I've come to feel the patterns of the year. I do not mean this in some celestially or chthonically transcendant way, with seasons and rituals and vegetables rising up and fading away in satisfying, preordained succession. I am talking about "I Got You, Babe" Groundhog Day style repetition--what, this again? Magazine covers are bad enough; I die a little inside every year when the food magazines all do their "grill" issue at the same time. What's worse is when the newsstand of the soul fails to delight or at least pique interest. (May heaven forgive me for typing "newsstand of the soul;" there it stands.) If it's February, I must be thinking about giving up sugar and getting into goddess shape before my April birthday. The year is young enough that I may still assign myself some absurd reading project. But most importantly, even if I don't give up sugar altogether, I must curb by baking habit. Right after I bake something special for Valentine's Day.

Or maybe it's against Valentine's Day, or in the face of Valentine's Day, not for Valentine's Day. After a lifetime of sensibly relating to Valentine's Day as a very happy excuse to enjoy cards and sweets and girlfriends and family, I have gotten a little bitter about being married to a non-celebrant. I don't believe in the candies and the flowers and the dinners and the pretty nightgowns, no, none of that is my speed, but why don't I have it anyway? I get greedy and worked up and passive aggressive in the runup to Valentine's Day--largely unnoticed by Andrew, whose first thought after a 30-hour shift is not, for some reason, buying me a bunch of tulips on the way home, but rather falling into bed. Alone, I mean.

The funny thing is that on February 14 I snap out of it and wear something pink and enjoy the day. This is in no small part thanks to my mother, who always sends cards and presents, and of course this year Bee is just old enough for fun with a glue stick, construction paper hearts, and stickers. There's also the excuse, always welcome, to break out the tart pan. This year it turned out Saveur's chocolate caramel tart, which I've had my eye on for a couple of years. Here are the facts:

1. Boy howdy, is it good. It is like a super-fancy Twix bar, and Twix is my favorite. It is very rich, perfectly (but not too) chewy, just wonderful to sink your teeth into. The caramel is slightly more dominant than the chocolate (the proper order of things, as far as I'm concerned).

2. There's actually no trick to it, if you aren't scared of caramel, which you shouldn't be. You make a pat-in crust and let it cool all the way; you make caramel, pour it in, and let it cool all the way; you make ganache, pour it over, and let it cool all the way. And then you keep it in the refrigerator until and after slicing.

3. Changes I made: skipped the crème fraîche (1 tablespoon!); cooked the caramel about 20 degrees too far (an accident, I was making breakfast at the same time), which I think only improved it--usually I'm too skittish to get it really dark; I used a 10-inch tart pan. Oh, and I did not dust with more salt since it already seemed rather decadently salty.

4. The whole works beautifully, but my crust did not turn out sublimely, probably because I overworked it. If you already have a foolproof chocolate cookie crust, I would use that; if I make this again, I might make it with a reliable shortbread pat-in crust instead, since I don't need extra chocolate flavor.

5. If/when I make this again, I would love to use a rectangular tart pan and slice it into bars instead of wedges.

6. This caramel was perfect, really, and trapping it between cookie crust and ganache means you don't have to fiddle with wrapping or otherwise storing it. I've not made these perfect caramels a second time mainly because I don't want to bother with wrapping them (and, yes, because I'm scared I'll eat them all now that I am a seasoned, shameless woman). There is a "lively" (read: hostile) discussion in the Saveur comments about what temperature the caramel should be cooked to; all I know is that my thermometer was racing past 340 when I turned the heat off, and I was perfectly happy with the result.

7. In my endless re-googling of the recipe, I found this extremely amusing post about two sisters and their different ways with this one recipe.

This, friends, is what happens when you try to photograph a piece of food that your whole being is yearning to gobble up right away: just point and shoot, hands, we're getting impatient! My final note on this tart, which I definitely do prefer to last year's chocolate custard tart, is that it is the rare dessert that pleases both Andrew, who loves chocolate, and me, with my preference for caramel (or fruit). Unless he was just telling me he loved it because he could see how smitten I was; that's the kind of funny Valentine I've come to expect from him.

And now, a new leaf. It is February, after all.

 

Karen DeMasco's Chocolate Custard Tart

Karen DeMasco’s chocolate custard tart--chocolate crust, chocolate filling--is not the kind of dessert I would choose for myself, but last week when Andrew’s old friends came over for dinner I wanted to make something he would like. It is good to eat and quite easy to make but seriously rich; I think you could almost cut it up into square inches and serve them as truffles. As a tart, it should be sliced into exceedingly thin wedges (i.e. not as pictured above) and served with barely-sweet whipped cream (and perhaps even then it should be shared).

I was very proud when I lined my tart shell, for this was the first time my dough has ever reached high enough to be neatly trimmed away without my pushing and prodding it up the sides. Alas, it slumped during the blind bake. (Andrew, by the way, is always distressed by my use of beans in blind baking. “Are we going to be able to eat those?” This time I told him that now I keep them in a plastic bag marked “pie weights,” so they’ll be used many times. He thought I was joking and said, “Only a crazy person would do that.”) In fact,

Things only went downhill after the tart shell drooped. Trusted recipes failed to turn out, nothing got seasoned right, and my guacamole probably tasted like stress. At a particularly low moment, I absentmindedly stashed the cumin in a drawer of utensils, a distracting mistake from which I never recovered.

People were nice, of course, but I was a bit frantic with disappointment. Isn’t it hard to hold your tongue before guests when the meal you’ve prepared isn’t what you hoped it would be? I did, this time, but for goodness sake, if Betsy Ray Willard managed to keep a company recipe up her sleeve, I should manage it, too.

As for the tart—I’d like to try it with a layer of caramel, or maybe try one of those other Twix-like tarts. The other half of the sablé dough is waiting in my freezer.

CHOCOLATE SABLE DOUGH

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

10 ounces (2.5 sticks)chilled unsalted butter cut into small pieces

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and slat. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on low speed until there are no visible pieces of butter, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and mix just until incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing each in completely before adding the next. Divide the dough in half, shape into flattened disks, and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARD TART

Flour for rolling

1/2 recipe chocolate sablé dough

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (70%), roughly chopped

4 ounces semisweet chocolate (62%), roughly chopped

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup whole milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

Big pinch kosher salt (she calls for 1/2 teaspoon; even with a big pinch instead, this was still a rather salty dessert)

Very lightly sweetened whipped cream to serve

Lightly flour your work surface. Roll the dough out into an 11-inch round. Fit the dough circle into a 9 1/2-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing it into the edges. Use a paring knife to trim excess dough at the top edge of the pan. Prick the bottom all over with a fork and freeze until firm, about 10 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350.

When the tart shell is chilled, line with aluminum foil or parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang, and fill it with pie weights or dried beans. Put the pan on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and pie weights, rotate the pan, and continue baking until the crust is fragrant and feels dry to the touch, 15 to 20 minutes more. Place the baking sheet on a wire rack and allow the crust to cool completely. Reduce the oven temperature to 275. Combine the chocolates in a mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the cream, milk, and sugar to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour about 1/3 of this mixture over the chocolate and VERY GENTLY whisk until the chocolate has melted completely. Gently, gently whisk in the remaining cream mixture.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl. Pour about 1/3 of the chocolate mixture over the eggs and gently whisk just to combine. Return the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture, add the salt, and VERY GENTLY whisk until smooth.

Fill the cooled crust with the chocolate custard. Carefully transfer the tart, on the baking sheet, to the oven and bake until the edges of the custard are set and the center is slightly loose, about 30 minutes (it was more like 45 for me). Transfer the tart to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve at room temperature.