I had to try this one too from the ancient cookbook (Amie Monro's The Practical Australian Cookery). I've done a bit of tinkering, added some bits, left out some bits and made the recipe clearer, I hope. Some things Amie just expects us to know: 'Return to oven to set whites'; no temperature, no timing. I wonder if she just had a wood-fired oven back in the day? Ah, I've just Googled it - Aussies generally didn't have electric ovens till the late 1920s!
Post Apocalyptic floods here, we've had our roof and gutters repaired and two whirlybirds put on the roof. So everything is drying out now, thank goodness. What I really hated was the awful burning smell which wet insulation gives off. It has taken weeks for the smell to die down/off. Yuck! And now we are having our usual hot Indian summer (are you allowed to say that these days?) days before we get winter. Well, most people wouldn't even call it winter. Average daytime temp in winter is 21C/71F! The best time of year.
old-fashioned chocolate tart ready to eat |
Serves 6:
ingredients:
225g./8 oz shortcrust pastry (see Notes below)
2-3 Tbs of Nutella or similar choc-hazelnut spread
45g./1.5 oz butter
30g./1 (heaped) oz plain flour
250 mL/8.5 fl oz milk - any sort but not low-fat
2 large eggs, separated into whites and yolks
60g./2.2 oz (good) milk chocolate - like Lindt - grated or blitzed in a food processor
30g./1 heaped oz of caster sugar
a couple of dashes of ground cinnamon
60g./2.2 oz pecans, toasted and chopped roughly
extra chocolate, grated - for bling on top
Method:
First grab a pie dish (c. 23cm/9" diameter), grease it with butter and line with the pastry sheet
Prick the base several times with a fork, and whack it into a hot oven (220C/425F) for fifteen minutes
Let it cool while you make the filling: Melt the butter on a low heat, whisk in the flour off the heat, then keep whisking while you cook out the flour for two minutes
Pour in the milk, and whisk away till boiling
Turn down the heat to low-ish, and whisk in the chocolate, sugar and egg yolks
Cook out the mixture till it thickens (without boiling), then leave aside to cool down
Spread the Nutella/hazelnut paste over the pastry base
Pour/spoon the cooled mixture into the baked pastry shell
Scatter the toasted pecans and dashes of cinnamon over the chocolate mixture
Make the meringue by beating the egg whites with 100g./3.5 oz of caster sugar till firm, stiff peaks form
Spread it gently over the pie filling, and now bake at 180C/360F for around ten minutes or till lightly golden-brown
When cool, throw on the extra grated chocolate over the meringue
Serve with whipped cream, if feeling decadent
This was not a very sweet pie, probably because I used 70% dark chocolate. And I confess the texture was a bit odd for this 21st century cook, but it was interesting to make (a béchamel with chocolate? I mean, really?) and it tasted - what? - interesting, chocolatey, dessert-like ... I'd like to make it again, but with milk chocolate (and more of it) and coconut milk. Yep a Bounty kind of tart :-)
Notes:
I had planned to make the pastry, but ... Time got away from me, so I thawed out a sheet of frozen. Hit the internet for recipes if you fancy making your own. (It's darned easy if you use your food processor)
I used Lindt spread but Nutella is fine; and I also used Lindt 70% dark chocolate for the filling - a mistake I think. Use milk chocolate!
Use nut milk, oat milk, rice milk, whatever. No, scrap the rice milk - you need fat! Mm, I'd love to try coconut milk here ...
ingredients gathered |
bake the crust @ 220C/425F for 15 mins. |
slather the spread over the baked pastry base |
pile on the meringue over the chocolate filling |
just lightly baked till golden-brown (ish) |
sprinkle on the grated chocolate |
get ready to enjoy |
© Sherry M. |
that used to be a concrete walking path pre-flood! |
You are quite a baker, Sherry :-) The chocolate tart looks excellent and again loaded with goodness. I just bought 5 packs of Lindt milk chocolate...might just turn them into a chocolate tart for the coming weekend.
ReplyDeletethank you angie. wow that's a lot of chocolate! Have fun.
DeleteThis looks decadent and really appeals to the chocolate lover in me! I have bookmarked this and will pay special attention to your suggested revisions.
ReplyDeletegood to hear anne. thanks for dropping by my post.
DeleteSherry, I understand torrential rain living in Florida. Seems like things are getting worse with our climate.
ReplyDeleteYour chocolate tart looks really good. It does not seem heavy too, which I really like.
Hope you are all dried out and the weather has improved.
Velva
yep that rain was so amazing. they kept calling it a rain bomb and indeed it was.
DeleteI am glad to hear your are getting through the aftermath of all the flooding. I am a huge fan of Lindt chocolate so the recipe is a keeper for me.
ReplyDeletethanks marie. i do love Lindt chocolate for cooking as it snaps so easily and melts so easily too.
DeleteI just reread the recipe a few times and I feel stupid, but I don't see where the chocolate spread (or nutella) went. I think I would like this dessert! I suspect a crumb crust would also work.
ReplyDeletebest... mae at maefood.blogspot.com
thanks Mae. Yes I had left out that bit! - now rectified. I'm kinda thinking a crumb crust would not work here. I don't think cooks in Edwardian times would have used them, and I feel the textures and flavours might not meld well. but who knows?
DeleteNow I see — and it’s true, spreading the nutella over a crumb crust would be tricky!
Deleteindeed it would :-)
DeleteChocolate tart? I'm in! This looks quite lovely. Didn't realize your winters were so mild. Nice. But I know your summers are HOT! Anyway, good stuff -- thanks.
ReplyDeleteyes very mild here. If it gets under 20C, we are freezing :-) But down south gets very cold of course - closer to the antarctic ...
Deletethat's true velva; it is quite a light tart. yes the weather is perfect autumnal days, and things are drying out.
ReplyDeleteYour chocolate tart looks beautiful and delicious. I love chocolate. Yumz.
ReplyDeletethanks nancy. Chocolate is always a winner.
DeleteOh my gosh - those winters. 71°F!? That's the perfect day! Anyways, this recipe sounds fantastic, Sherry! I'd love to grab a slice and dig in. Can you imagine baking in a wood-fired oven, though? Temperature all over the place. Hot spots on one side and not the other. That would certainly add an element of difficulty! But then again, I bet a wood-fired oven would bring such amazing flavor to everything! Either way, I'll stick with my modern version. Haha!
ReplyDeleteyep they're very mild. i wear a scarf inside when it drops below 20C:-) I don't fancy a wood oven. so tricky i imagine.
DeleteIt is so much fun reading these posts about foods in your antique cookbook. Hugs, B
ReplyDeletethanks bernadette! i love old cookbooks!
DeleteThat looks beautiful and it really presents well, too!
ReplyDeletethanks jeanie.
DeleteOne of my grandma's cookbooks is 117 years old. I've yet to make anything - recipes were very simple. Glad to be enjoying life now - cooking is so much fun :) Maybe I need to take a look at it again! Love your Villeroy and Boch plate - I have some of that dinnerware too...
ReplyDeleteyes you had to be savvy to cook in those days. instructions were very sparse in cookbooks.
DeleteWhat a very interesting recipe. Interesting that you suggested milk chocolate instead of 70%. That's a big leap. But I do see why the 70% could be overpowering. I do have a question - did they have Nutella 100 years ago? :)
ReplyDeletehi MJ, it's not that the dark chocolate was overpowering, it's just that it is not sweet so the filling was not very sweet. I think it needed the sweetness that milk chocolate gives. Nope, Nutella is a recent invention. I just thought that it needed a boost; Amie doesn't include this step at all! It was one of my tweaks.
DeleteThis tart looks delicious Sherry, and made me think how far we have come in the kitchen in 110 years. Did they have a hazelnut spread back then? Great idea though.Love the meringue. They would have all made their own pastry, and without a food processor, and in a hot kitchen, yuk. Sorry to hear you were so affected by the floods Sherry. We've had a reprieve up here so far this year, touch wood. Nice post, thanks
ReplyDeletenah that was my idea. yes cooking back then would have been a very hard slog indeed. They say we may get more rain and floods! the fun never ends...
DeleteGlad you are getting back to post-flood normal! The tart looks divine!
ReplyDeletethanks David!
DeleteBeautiful blog
ReplyDeletethanks kindly.
DeleteChocolate AND meringue = double the fun! :)
ReplyDeleteit is that ronit!
DeleteLove this authentic chocolate tart Sherry! Looks delicious. Sorry for all your weather troubles there. It isn't much better here in Scotland on the other side of the world. Our storms recently have destroyed 8 million trees. :-(
ReplyDeletehi neil
Deletewhoever would have thought to make a chocolate bechamel? So odd and different. Oh no! 8 million trees? that is just awful.
Love this 110 year old chocolate tart recipe. It looks wonderful!
ReplyDeletethank you Balvinder.
DeleteYou are so lucky the damage was not worse, and that summer is still hanging around. What was used originally in place of Nutella?
ReplyDeleteMore rain on the way ... The nutella was just my idea as i thought the tart was too plain :) I don't think they had such things back in the day.
DeleteThis may be an oldie but it seems like a goodie - I can't wait to see what you're going to cook from that book next. Great tip about the milk chocolate, I always swap milk for dark chocolate where I can because all my teeth are sweet!
ReplyDeletehi sammie
Deletei usually go for dark always as i did here but this time i felt that they would have used milk! It really needed to be sweeter with such a small amount of sugar.
Nutella, Chocolate and Pecans!!! OMG that thing sounds really good
ReplyDeletethanks Raymund! it was.
DeleteIt's kind of cool to try some old recipes like this. Yeah it's sounds a little peculiar because of the chovolate "béchamel", but overall I love the concept and all these flavours. Indeed, I'm not a fan of too sweet desserts, so dark chocolate sounds like a good idea for me.
ReplyDeleteyes i love making old recipes. such fun. i did find it hard to get over the concept of choc bechamel i have to say.
Delete