I first made this tart for an ex-boyfriend of my mum's birthday party we were hosting last summer. It was one of the first times I had a real 'wow' moment with something I had made, so definitely holds a special place in my heart. The party guests seemed to enjoy it too - it dissapeared within minutes - including one friend of his polishing off three slices. I have to admit that both mum and I had been secretly hoping for leftovers, and weren't too amused! But after all food is made to be eaten and it was lovely they enjoyed it so much. I had been dreaming about making it again ever since but never really got around to it. Then mum decided to have a small dinner party for her birthday to counteract the huge party she's having on monday - to have time to actually chat to friends - and so I thought it was time I made it again.
It didn't quite live up to my memories but I'm blaming that on not having lovely in-season home grown raspberries and only having medium quality white chocolate. It was still very lovely. Luckily this time we had plenty leftover - think it was more due to over-feeding them with the previous courses than any fault of the tart (or perhaps this was a scheme to keep some...!). It's really very rich and decadent so not too much of a surprise we couldn't manage huge slices. It was rather helpful we had some leftover, actually, as I had forgotten to take any photos of the finished product the night before.
I had a lot of problems with the pastry base this time - I don't remember it being a problem before. In the end I had to make two - the first went wrong in every way possible. To start with it never looked or tasted quite right, then I tried to make it fit a slightly bigger tart tin so it was handled too much as I tried to patch it up/stretch it, I didn't have proper beans to bake it blind so used rice which stuck and wasn't heavy enough, then the sides started breaking off as I tried to get the rice off... and then to top it all off, I managed to burn it. So the dogs enjoyed that one with their supper and I set to making it again. I increased the cocoa and sugar content and made it by hand rather than in the food processor, which seemed to improve the feel of the dough. My fridge wasn't cooling properly - think I had stuffed it with too much stuff for the rest of the party - so I popped it in the freezer (which is always fairly tepid itself - can hardly keep ice cream solid) for two thirds of the time it needed to rest. I went and bought some proper beans (as you can see above) and used the proper sized tin and it turned out much better. I've written below the method/ingredients I used the second time. I would still like to play with the pastry recipe - it wasn't as tasty as I remembered.
White Chocolate and Raspberry Tart with a Dark Chocolate Crust
(I've removed this recipe as I no longer trust it to work for you)
that looks like a model it is so good !!!!!!!!!!!!
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