I’ve never made a tart with a chocolate pastry before so decided it was time to try. The first recipe I tried must have had a typo in it as it was more like a loose batter than pastry dough. After tossing that attempt in the bin I decided to modify the pâté sucrée recipe that I’ve had success with by adding cocoa powder and a bit of vanilla. It certainly baked up well so let’s hope it tastes good too.
I had some filling left over so baked it in a ramekin, the filling is good, but I like lime filling to be more tart. I will adjust the filling next time, less sweetened condensed milk, more egg and more lime juice and zest.
Filling
1 cup lime juice
1.5 tsp finely grated lime zest
2 cans (14 oz=414 mL) sweetened condensed milk
3 medium eggs, lightly beaten
Chocolate pâté sucrée
75g icing sugar
250g plain flour
125g butter
1 large egg, beaten (plus 1 large egg white, depending on consistency)
4.5 tbsp cocoa powder 31 g
Pinch of salt
½ tsp vanilla
Put the icing sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt and butter into a food processor and blitz to breadcrumbs. Continue to blitz, and gradually add the whole egg and vanilla until the dough comes together. You can check to see if it is hydrated enough by carefully picking a small amount up and compressing it to see if it forms a cohesive dough, if it does not, you may need to add a little of the egg white. Form the dough into a little round, cover with clingfilm and rest in the freezer for 10 minutes.
Roll the dough out to 12” diameter between two sheets of parchment paper (keep one for later). If cracks form during rolling, just dab a bit of water on the cracks and bring the edge back together. Remove the top parchment paper and transfer to the tart pan. Gently press the dough into the pan ensuring that it goes into every nook and cranny. Avoid stretching the dough as that leads to excessive shrinkage during baking. If there are crack just use excess dough that is above the pan edge to fill the crack smoothing it out quickly with your fingers trying not to melt the butter. Dock the dough.
Chill it for 30 minutes in the freezer, this helps avoid shrinkage. Pre-heat your oven to 350F (180C) while the tart dough is chilling in the freezer. Once the oven is ready line the top of the crust with foil or parchment paper and place pie weights or dried beans to keep the pie crust from puffing when baking.
Bake the pâte sucrée for 20 minutes. Carefully remove the parchment paper filled with weights and bake for 5 more minutes, until the edges of the crust are golden. This bake time was reduced since this filling needs more time to bake than the original recipe with this pastry.
Set the tart shell aside to cool (still in the dish). Leave your oven on at 350F/180C.
In the meantime, prepare the filling: in a mixing bowl, whisk together the lime zest, lime juice, eggs and condensed milk until well incorporated. Pour the filling into the cooled crust and place in the oven again. Bake for 20 more minutes until slightly jiggly in the middle but set around the edges.
Remove and allow to cool at room temperature for 25 minutes; after that refrigerate until very firm, at least 5-6 hours or ideally overnight.
