Chocolate tart with creme and blood orange

Photographer: Emma
Serves 12

You don’t see blood oranges all that often in Auckland supermarkets so when I saw a display of them at the counter of Emma’s little corner fruit shop I was overwhelmed with excitement and happiness.  It was kind of like being reunited with a long lost friend and that friend being someone who is completely normal on the outside but surprisingly colourful and crazy (good-crazy not bad-crazy) on the inside.

That’s what seeing the display of blood oranges was like.

I bought two and on the way home pondered how on earth a citrus fruit became such a good partner for chocolate; to me, it’s the most unlikely of duos.  I decided that the combination was perfect after trying little bit by little bit of the raw pastry dough.  The crème fraiche filling cuts through the sweet chocolate and leaves your mouth drooling, wanting just one more hit.

So here it is; not exactly a traditional winter comfort dessert but rich, decadent and impressive to lift spirits during the bleakest of seasons.

INGREDIENTS

Pastry
70g dark chocolate
60g butter
2 egg yolks
½ cup caster sugar
1 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
The zest of 1 blood orange

Ganache
50ml cream
100g dark chocolate

Creme
250ml crème fraiche
250ml pouring cream

Oranges
2 blood oranges, segmented
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp liquor

METHOD

Pastry – alternatively use this dough for cookies.
1. In a bain marie, melt the chocolate with the butter. Cool.
2. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the orange rind.
3. Fold the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate mixture. Then add the flour and baking powder, stir to combine. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or until firm.

Ganache
4. Bring the cream to the boil, take off the heat and stir in the chocolate. Leave to cool.

Oranges
5. Peel, then segment the oranges. Add them to a small frying pan with the sugar and water.
6. Cook over high heat for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the oranges caramelise slightly.
7. Pour in the liquor. To flambé (or set alight) while cooking, light the mixture with a blow torch (pull your hand away quickly after lighting) or if you have a gas element you can tip the pan into the direction of the flame (to kind of “scoop up” the flame).

To assemble
8. Preheat your oven to 190ºC.
9. Press the pastry into a tart shell approx 0.5cm – 1cm thick, place back into the fridge for 30 mins or the freezer for 15 mins.
10. Bake blind for 10 mins, then remove the baking beans/rice, reduce the heat to 180ºC and bake for a further 5-10 mins. Leave to cool on a rack.
11. Once the shell has completely cooled, spread the ganache evenly over the base. Refrigerate for 10 mins.
12. Whisk the cream and creme fraiche together then spread over the ganache. This is easiest to do when the ganache has been chilled and set.
13. Drizzle over the oranges and syrup.
14. Refrigerate before slicing and serving.