Chocolate and Caramel Tart { Easter }

Here we are, one week from Easter, and I really wanted to offer you an indulgent recipe for the occasion. Obviously, I chose to make a chocolate recipe!

This Easter chocolate and caramel tart is made up of a cocoa pâte sablée, a salted butter caramel, a tonka chocolate ganache and a milk chocolate whipped ganache.

The recipe is simple (I promise) and ultra indulgent. I used the chocolate ganache recipe found in the chocolate, tonka bean and caramelised hazelnut tart (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!) and for the decoration, I was largely inspired by one of the Easter desserts by Sylvie from the blog Amuse Bouche.

Which chocolate should I use?

Here, chocolate takes centre stage and I strongly advise you to opt for a quality chocolate, in other words a couverture chocolate from Valrhona or Cacao Barry. It’s a chocolate richer in cocoa butter that you won’t find in supermarkets. The price is higher, granted, but honestly the taste is incomparable. For this tart, I used Inaya dark chocolate and Alunga milk chocolate from Cacao Barry (a bit cheaper than Valrhona).

As for the ganache that fills the tart shell, I like to make a dark chocolate/milk chocolate blend but if you’re a dark chocolate fan, you can use only dark chocolate. Be careful, a 100% milk chocolate tart may be a little too sweet (let’s not forget there’s a layer of caramel too…)

What’s the difference between ganache and whipped ganache?

A ganache is a mixture of chocolate and cream. You combine two fats (a bit like a mayonnaise) by making an emulsion. A perfect emulsion will give a magnificent ganache, beautifully smooth, beautifully glossy and terribly indulgent. With it, you can make many desserts: truffles, fill a Yule log, cover a cake, fill macarons, fill chocolate bonbons or even make a tart filling. But you can also make mousses for entremets starting from a ganache base.

Whipped ganache is lighter. It differs from classic ganache by the addition of cold cream after the emulsion. After several hours in the fridge, you need to whip it with a mixer to get a thicker texture. You can then use it with a piping bag or a spatula. You can also fill macarons with it, make entremets…

How do I get my whipped ganache right?

Whipped ganache can be scary. But you just need to follow the recipe carefully to get it right every time. First of all, you must use full-fat liquid cream, that is to say a cream containing at least 30% fat. I’ve recently been using a liquid cream with 35% fat (normally reserved for professionals) and no need to go to Métro to get it. Yes, you can find it at Auchan, quite simply. What’s more, it comes in 50cl cartons, which is much more practical (I find) than a 1L carton.

The ganache must be prepared the day before. Yes, I know, you could just as well prepare it 4 hours ahead… but you might as well put all the odds in your favour, right? So I advise you to prepare it the day before (it also lightens the workload) and to chill it in a wide container.

The next day, make sure the bowl of your stand mixer (or your mixing bowl) and the whisk(s) are nice and cold. A quick 10-20 minutes in the fridge or a quick trip to the freezer if you have room will do. Honestly, I use the stainless steel bowl of my KitchenAid stand mixer and I run it under very cold water just before whipping the ganache. That’s enough to cool it down.

Last tip, go easy when whipping the ganache. We tend to think, wrongly, that you need to mix at high speed but it’s the opposite. I use a low speed (or medium speed at most) to incorporate as much air as possible. You need to keep a close eye on it (avoid doing something else at the same time!) so you can stop in time. The ganache will firm up, the whisk will start to leave marks and you’ll see furrows forming. If in doubt, stop and look (if it’s over-whipped, there’s no going back). The ganache should hold on the whisk but still remain fairly supple. If it’s almost ready, don’t hesitate to finish with a hand whisk. You have a bit more control than with the stand mixer…