TWD: Soft Chocolate and Raspberry Tart

Chocolate. Raspberry. Soft, pudding-like baked ganache, surrounding fresh juicy raspberries. This recipe was one of those that has been bookmarked for two years. And after the first time I made the sweet tart dough (seriously my favorite tart dough ever), I knew this was a tart that I needed someone to pick. High stakes, huh? Yeah - doesn't quite explain why there's only one little tart, does it?

This is where life makes my baking come to a screeching halt. Because, you see, I was heading to Chicago for a three day weekend just after making this tart. And so having a full raspberry + chocolate tart would be a bad idea for a couple reasons. One, I'd probably feel required to finish it all, myself, in the two days before leaving. Result? Tummy ache followed by complete inability to fit into cute clothes for traipsing about the city. Two, if I had the willpower to bring it into work, do you really think that my coworkers (those of the cake + frosting sandwiches) would appreciate the hideously overpriced and out-of-season raspberries that I had liberally strewn onto the bottom of the tart? Yeah, um, notsomuch.


Thus, my solution - one mini tart, quickly assembled over two evenings. Never more than 30 minutes of active time meant I could fit it in even with a couple long days at work. I also was able to stuff the tart as full of raspberries as possible, since that was a comment I saw relatively often about this tart - big on chocolate, needed to be bigger on raspberries. Come to think of it, it'd probably be fantastic if you spread a thin-ish layer of raspberry preserves on the bottom of the crust before scattering the raspberries on and pouring in the chocolate. But in the end, even I was thwarted - I ended up bringing it into work and handing it off to a friend. That's right - not a single bite for me, thanks to a churning stomach post-swim workout.


Unfortunately, her reaction was decidedly meh on this little tart. Not entirely sure what happened, but it just didn't seem to come together the way the idea worked in my head. Not to mention that the end result looks unpleasantly wart-y thanks to the raspberries sticking up outside the ganache - I'd rather have smooshed them down a bit pre-chocolate so I wouldn't have that, but didn't think about it while I was assembling. Live and learn, eh? And I guess now I have to move on to the next thing I can't wait for someone to pick - Dorie's cream scones! While I've made them dozens of times, they're still my ultimate favorite recipe in the entire book. A true winner.


Last Week: Jam Thumbprints
Next Week: Dulce de Leche Duos (I was told by a friend these were slightly one-dimensional, so I'm scheming up ways to spice them up. Any ideas, feel free to share!)