Peanut Butter Cup Tart

Photographer: Dani
Serves 6-8

Late one night, I found myself craving a certain American sweet treat. Salty but smooth peanut filling encased in deliciously creamy chocolate. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!

But with none on hand I came up with this fantastic recipe, inspired by the flavours of those subliminal peanut treats. This tart has an extra dimension in the form of a golden sweet pastry base,  making this tart  a decadent afternoon slice or a show stopping end to any great meal.

 

INGREDIENTS

Tart shell
150g butter
100g icing sugar
1 egg
3 drops of vanilla essence
250g soft flour

Filling
300 ml cream
2 tsp caster sugar
50 g softened butter
200g milk chocolate, broken into small pieces
50ml milk
350g peanut butter
Extra chocolate for shaving, edible flowers (optional) and whipped cream, to serve

METHOD

Tart Pastry
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly cream the butter and sugar together
2. Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix again. Fold in the flour by hand and shape into a flat disc, place into the refrigerator wrapped in cling film to set. After the pastry has set for 30 minutes remove from chiller and roll out to 3mm thick. Line a 20cm flan ring with pastry.
3. Return it to the chiller to set and rest for another 30 minutes then blind bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
4. Remove the beans and allow to cool, using a cooling rack. If the tart has jagged edges you can fix this by taking a pair of scissors and cutting to a desired height.

Filling
1. When the tart shell has cooled fill with the peanut butter, making sure to spread it evenly around the tart and also making sure it is level. Return to the refrigerator for the time being.
2. While the tart is cooling, prepare the chocolate ganache. Chop the chocolate into smaller pieces, about 1 centimetre to allow it to melt quicker.
3. Put the cream, sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove as soon as the mixture boils up. Remove the saucepan from the heat, add the butter and chocolate. Stir until blended.
4. Let the mixture sit for a minute, then stir in the milk. Keep stirring the mixture until into becomes shiny. Once it reaches this stage, remove the tart from the refrigerator and pour the ganache over the top of the peanut butter. Always remember to cover all of the peanut butter, and remove any air bubbles that might occur on top. Leave at room temperature for 2 hours to set.
5. While ganache is setting, create chocolate shards by using a vegetable peeler on the flat base of a block of chocolate. We decorated our tart with these chocolate shards and edible flowers such as pansies. But feel free to top with anything that you desire; such as flaky sea salt, cream or a variety of different chocolate curls.