Raspberry and Chocolate Tart
Ingredients
Sweet Pastry
2¼ cups plain flour
1/4 cup icing sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs (~60g each)
Filling
1 cup jam
1 cup granulated white sugar
100 ml Amaretto (see note)
250g raspberries
150g cherries, pitted
150g blueberries
1 cup boiling water
5g gelatine
Topping
100g Lindt dark chocolate; orange or mint flavoured
Fresh mint leaves
Method
For sweet shortcrust pastry, combine flour and icing sugar in food processor, process to combine. Add butter and process to fine crumbly texture. Add eggs and process until pastry comes together. Knead lightly on floured surface until base is smooth, pat the top to flatten slightly then wrap in baking paper and refrigerate 30 minutes or until firm enough to roll out.
Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface, to 5mm-thick. Use pastry to line base and sides of a 3cm deep, 31 x 15cm loose-based tart/flan tin (lightly greased). Trim off any excess pastry; prick the base all over with a fork and then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan forced). Place sheet of baking paper over the pastry and three-quarters fill with raw rice or beans. Bake blind for 15 minutes or until edges are light golden. Remove paper and rice and bake further 10 minutes or until base is dry and pastry golden. Remove from oven and transfer pastry to cooling rack immediately – do not allow it to cool in tin.
While the pastry is cooling, place jam, Amaretto and sugar into a saucepan on medium-to-high heat. Bring to a simmer and cook until jam has completed melted. Lower heat and add all berries. Note: the berries should be defrosted (at room temperature) but not drained of natural juices. Stirring regularly, cook until the berry mixture just comes to boil, remove from heat.
Bring water to boil in another saucepan. Once brought to a boil, remove from heat, cool slightly and then slowly add gelatine, stirring continuously. Never allow the gelatine mixture to boil. Keep stirring until all gelatine has dissolved.
Add gelatine mixture to the berry mixture, lightly stir for a couple minutes (until both mixtures are completed mixed) and then cool in saucepan until the mixture is just starting to set (thicken).
Pour filing into the pastry (depending on fruit used you may have access, so only ¾ fill) and refrigerate for several 4-6 hours until the filing completely sets.
To serve
Using a potato peeler, shave off strips of the Lindt chocolate. Use small, quick strokes if you want tiny shavings of chocolate or long slow strokes if you want larger shavings. Sprinkle shavings around the base of the tart and on top of the filing. Be generous!
Garnish with a few mint leaves and serve.
Notes and Tips
Amaretto is a sweet-flavoured liqueur. You can substitute it with dessert wine, port or orange juice.
When selecting a jam, choose a berry mixture (e.g. forest berries), or a berry not included in the fresh fruit (e.g. strawberry), to avoid over dominance of one berry.
Raspberry’s always result in a strong, tartly flavour, if you prefer something a more sweet tasting tart, then either decrease the quantity of the raspberry (and correspondingly increasing the amount of another) or replace with another fruit like blackberries. The types of fruit used can be easily altered to suit individual tastes.
You will most likely end up with excess pastry, in which case make a small tart case like pictured below:
.jpg)
.jpg)
