Chilli. Chocolate. Tart. YES! Chilli and chocolate is always a winner. Impress your friends (or make new ones) with this unexpected showstopper.
SERVES 8–10
FOR THE CHOC PASTRY
1 small egg
45g icing sugar
50g cocoa
160g plain flour
¼ tsp salt
140g cold unsalted butter, cut into 5cm cubes
½ tsp Lucky Taco Habanero Hot Sauce
FOR THE MALTED CHOC FILLING
150g milk chocolate (we use Whittaker’s)
2 tbsp barley malt syrup/extract (we use Ceres brand — look in your local supermarket)
60g unsalted butter
¼ cup cream
2 eggs 1 egg yolk
50g sugar
20 Maltesers, crushed into pieces chilli flakes (optional)
For the choc pastry, beat together egg and icing sugar in a small bowl until combined.
Put flour, cocoa and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine.
Scatter cold cubes of butter evenly over flour, cocoa and salt.
Add the icing sugar and egg mixture, along with hot sauce, to the food processor. Pulse to combine, but don’t let it come together into a ball.
Tip mixture on to a lightly floured surface and gently knead together until smooth. Flatten into a disc, wrap in greaseproof paper and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
On a well-floured surface, roll out chilled pastry to a little bigger than the base of a 20–23cm tart tin with a loose base. Slide base of the tin under pastry to help you lift it into the tin. Gently press pastry up the sides of the tin to line the walls, then trim with a small knife. Save any overhangs to patch up any cracks after blind-baking. Prick pastry base all over with a fork, then place in freezer for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 190°C. Line pastry base with foil and fill with baking beans. (You can use any dried pulse or beans for blind-baking. It just adds weight to the dough so the pastry base doesn’t rise.) Bake for 15 minutes. Remove beans and foil and bake for a further 10 minutes. Then remove from oven and patch up any cracks that have formed with leftover pastry.
For the filling, reduce oven temp to 150°C.
Place chocolate, barley malt syrup, malt, butter and cream in a heatproof bowl sitting over a saucepan of simmering hot water. Stir occasionally, until smooth and melted. Remove from heat and set aside.
Whisk eggs, yolk and sugar with a hand beater or electric hand-whisk until light and fluffy. Fold this light, fluffy egg mixture through the melty-choc mixture until combined. Pour mixture into pastry case and bake for 35 minutes, until just set. Allow to cool.
Sprinkle crushed Maltesers and a few chilli flakes (if using) over the top — don’t go crazy with the chilli flakes, as they are quite spicy.
Serve with vanilla ice cream.
Extracted from The Lucky Taco Cookbook by Sarah and Otis Frizzell, published by Penguin Random House NZ
