Monday, April 27, 2009

Tuesdays with Dorie - Chocolate Creme Tart

I made every attempt in the book to screw this one up.  The fact that it turned out not only edible, but pretty damn good is a testament to Dorie!

It all started with the crust.  I put all the ingredients into the food processor and pulsed, and pulsed.....and pulsed....but all I had was a FP full of crumbs.  It was not coming together into anything resembling usable crust.  Damn.  So I looked at the recipe to make sure I hadn't left something out and...well, crap....I had added 1/2 cup too much flour.  No wonder.  So, I'm about to throw it out and start over when I realize I don't have enough butter in the house for another whole recipe.  So, I punted.  The only thing my inexperienced baker mind could come up with was to add another egg yolk and a few more tablespoons of butter and hope for the best.

I didn't exactly achieve "best", but I ended up with something that I could actually press into a tart pan, but by this time I had a huge amount of crust so I used a 12" tart pan instead of the 9" that Dorie called for.  Another crap.  This meant that there wasn't going to be enough filling.  Grrrrr.


Which brings us to my second faux pas.  I was about a half a second too late getting the boiling milk off the burner.  Which means that half of it boiled over all over my stove and countertops.  At this point, I wanted to throw it all into the garbage and go help Mr. B wash cars (yuck).  But I didn't, because after all of these pastry cream recipes this month, I own pastry cream, so I can totally turn this around.  Errr.  Not so much.

Everything was going well until I added the chocolate and then it turned into this really shiny gelatinous blob in my pan.  WTF?  It was like my chocolate had too much fat in it?  Is that possible?  Help?

Considering all that I'd already been through with this F'n tart, I shoved it into the fridge to cool and tried to figure out what I was going to do to fill 12"'s of space with about 7"'s of filling.  I had read in some of the comments on the TWD site that someone was thinking of spreading a thin layer of Nutella over the crust before adding the pudding.  Bingo.  I'm stealing that idea.....and I did.

So, I put about a whole container of Nutella in there, poured in the pudding, whipped up some cream (added a little hazlenut Kahlua....drank the rest) and shoved it into the back of the refrigerator hoping to forget about it.



About an hour later, Mr. B comes in exhausted from washing cars and wants a little bit of whatever it was that I'd been making....house smelled like chocolate, I guess.  I asked him if he was sure.....he said, "hell, yes...smells like chocolate".  

Well, other than a somewhat crumbly crust, it tasted fabulous.  How did that happen?  Since Mr. B leaves town for the week, I gave half of the tart to my trainer who loved it.  Now his girlfriend wants the recipe!  I don't even know where to begin.

Thanks to Kim of Scrumptious Photography for her choice this week.  You can get the "correct" recipe from her blog. 

5 comments:

  1. That is hilarious.

    I am so sorry that you had such problems, but it sounds like you did well.

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  2. Well, that's certainly a success if ever there was one! Truly, Nutella is a terrific idea. Well done!

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  3. LOL...I love the idea of thinking of you trying to give her the recipe and the directions for your version of this! It looks fabulous!
    Kayte
    www.grandmaskitchentable.typepad.com

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  4. Sorry you had so many problems with the process but it sounds like it turned out well in the end :) Great job!

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  5. Don't you just love it when a plan, eh, tart comes together!!! Good for you to stay with it. Glad it turned out in the end.

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