This week I went back to the Tart chapter. Why did I break from my scheduled plan of taking on one recipe per chapter? When I made the Paté Sucrée crust for the Caramel Nut Tart (read that post here) it said the dough was only good frozen for one month, so since then I’ve been gathering all of the ingredients for this tart. Remember, when I priced all of the ingredients out for this tart on Amazon it would cost $133.00? I ended up substituting a few things and got that cost down to about $80.00, but I still spread out the purchases over a few weeks. Last Sunday, I was just over that four week in the freezer mark, got the last ingredient needed, and decided to celebrate “Social Distancing” with my attempt at this Chocolate, Praline, and Cocoa Nib Tart. Seriously, couldn’t they have come up with a shorter title?

I was very excited to have an already prepared Paté Sucrée for my crust because there were quite a few steps to making this tart and that saved a LOT of time. First up, making the praline! I bought, on Amazon this amazing Hazelnut-praline paste. It’s the closest thing I could find to what was called for in this recipe. It doesn’t have any almonds in it, but in order to check this recipe off I needed some sort of paste so I purchased Love’n Bake’s Hazelnut praline paste and OMG. I could eat this with a spoon! I have an intense dislike for hazelnuts, but this stuff? Pure heaven!

Cost: $23.97. Yep. Kind of crazy expensive!

You combine this totally yummy paste with .5 ounces of Valhrona 40% chocolate (cost around $13.00 for ONE bar!), some feuilletine, and a little cocoa butter. What is feuilletine? Good question! As I also, had no idea. According to amazon, it’s a specific kind of cookie crumble. (see pictures below)

Note to self, in future use a much less expensive bar of chocolate for this .5 oz ingredient! Although there’s good news in that I have 95% of the bar left.

Substitution note: I didn’t have cocoa butter in the house and googled cocoa butter substitutions. Google suggested coconut oil, which I had! I didn’t notice any change in how the praline tasted or looked, so if you don’t want the additional cost and have coconut oil, try it!

The above pictures of feuilletine are mine on the left and Amazon’s much better photo on the right. Anyway, you mix those ingredients together to get a crunchy paste that kind of reminded me of a brown rice crispy treat and roll it flat and then freeze for four hours. You’ll size this to your tart, cut it into a circle (those are my hubby’s helping hands below) and place it on the top of your crust for your first layer.

My next step is to make a chocolate dentelle. I know you are thinking, what the heck is a chocolate dentelle? Me too! It is a mixture of crushed hazel nuts, cocoa nibs, cocoa, butter, sugar, and a little corn syrup. You mix it together, spread it on a pan and let it bubble and then turn solid. Kind of like one of those lace cookies? It caramelizes and solidifies. This will be my decorative touch on the top of my tart. The extra’s are also a tasty snack as I make my chocolate ganache filling.

Are you wondering what a cocoa nib is? Yeah, I didn’t know either until I ordered them but cocoa nibs are basically crushed cocoa beans. They taste a little chocolatey but have a very subtle flavor. Think espresso beans. When you eat those they taste like coffee but are chalky and crunchy? Same with cocoa nibs, although they taste like chocolate, not coffee.

Substitution note: I used Hershey’s cocoa powder instead of Valrhona. I’m sure that would’ve cost me a lot more, but I decided to save those dollars and go with what was in the house.

The above is a picture of some cocoa nibs.

The last step is to make a chocolate ganache. At their direction I used 64% chocolate (Valrhona again!), heavy cream, trimoline, glucose, and butter. Thankfully I had glucose left over from the Caramel Nut tart, but had to purchase another $13.00 bar of Valrhona chocolate. (Thank you Sur La Table!)

Substitution note: I didn’t have trimoline on hand, but had purchased caster sugar for another recipe which is similar from what I’ve read so I used the small amount needed in this recipe. Same taste as far as I could tell!

My ganache was silky smooth and….. I forgot to take pictures of it. LOL. However, it looked as it should so I poured it over the praline and let it set for four hours. Just before serving I added the chocolate dentelle and voilá!

The Reading Chick’s Chocolate, Praline, and Cocoa Nib Tart!

It turned out well!

Would I make this one again? No. My family thought it was VERY good, but I don’t like hazelnuts enough to take three hours to make this tart. I’m glad I did make the attempt! Also, as I said with the Caramel Nut Tart, I would definitely make this Paté Sucrée again, it is so yummy! I’d eat it alone, or maybe dunk it in hot fudge sauce or something. OMG.

What did I learn from making the Chocolate, Praline, and Cocoa Nib Tart? A lot actually. I had never made a chocolate dentelle, praline, or a real chocolate ganache that didn’t go over a Boston Cream pie. 🙂

I may end up jumping recipe’s again soon if I can gather all of the ingredients from what’s already in the house. I’m making do with “social distancing” and I hope you all are as well.

Take care, stay healthy, and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Deb

Click this link to purchase the cookbook! Bouchon Bakery (The Thomas Keller Library)