Chocolate-Hazelnut Torte, with mirror glaze

This recipe is based on a post by the excellent La Pâte de Dom which he calls 'Cracahuète', being a bit of word play between croquant(crunchy) and cacahuète(peanut).  Not being fond of peanuts in cooking, I have switched the nuts to hazelnuts of which there are plenty on the trees. The recipe serves 10 to 12 since it is very rich. 

Like much modern pastry cookery, the tart filling is a sort of 'club sandwich' of several ingredients.  These would be on hand in a professional pastry kitchen and therefore the tart is little more than an assembly job.  In the domestic kitchen making each element from scratch for a single tart is possibly more trouble than it is worth: frankly one can use as many layers as one likes.

The basics elements are a sweet pastry case into which are layered in turn, salted butter caramel, chocolate custard, chocolate and hazelnut crunch, and hazelnut-flavoured white chocolate ganache.  The tart is iced with shiny chocolate icing.

As this is the second time of making the tart, I already had some frozen sweet pastry and a pot of salted butter caramel in the fridge, so the things needed were custard, ganache and hazelnut crunch.

The recipes for the main ingredients are below.  The main technical issue is that since three of the fillings are soft, these need to be frozen or very cold during assembly or the result will be just a mess.  This means that it is easier make the tart over several days, leaving time for each ingredient to become very cold. 

 

The assembly comprises:

i. Blind bake a 20 cm round tart shell in the standard way.

ii. Spread salted butter caramel on this base.  Freeze until the caramel is hard.

iii. Spread or pipe on the very cold chocolate custard.  You can easily level the surface by pressing a cling film wrapped disc of the correct diameter onto the surface.  Refrigerate until firm or for up to 24 hours..

iv. Ice the frozen ganache disc.  Place the frozen crunchy layer on the custard and top with the still frozen iced ganache.  Hold in a cool spot not more than 15°C colder than your room temperature.  If it is colder than that, condensation will form on the icing and spoil the finish.  So if you need to refrigerate the cake, put it a closed box.  Take the box out of the refrigerator an hour or so before it is to be eaten to allow it to warm up slowly.  Decorate as you like.

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Salted Butter Caramel

Ingredients:

Milk                  50grams

Vanilla powder    2grams

Cream             200grams

Glucose Syrup   50grams

Glucose Syrup 100grams

Sugar                95grams

Salted butter      70grams

Salt                     2grams

Bring the liquids and 50 grams of glucose to a boil, caramelise the remaining glucose and sugar, pour on the nearly boiling liquid and stir well to dissolve.  Stir in the room temperature butter and salt while the mix is still slightly warm so the butter blends but does not melt.  Store refrigerated in a jam jar.  These quantities are enough for two tarts.  The mixture will need warming a little in the microwave to soften it enough to spread or pipe.

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Dark Chocolate Custard

Ingredients:

Milk                     72grams

Cream                145grams

Glucose syrup       20grams

Egg yolk               26grams

Dark Chocolate  112grams

Mix together all the ingredients except the chocolate, heat gently to make a custard.  The mixture shouldn't boil so a double boiler or a Simmertopf are handy.  Let the mixture cool a bit and chop the chocolate into bits and stir in to dissolve.  You can sieve it to be sure there are no lumps and store in the refrigerator for a day or two with the surfaced covered with plastic wrap so a skin cannot form.

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Milk Chocolate and Hazelnut Crunch

Ingredients:

Milk Chocolate       15garms

Praline Paste           60grams

Toasted hazelnuts   10grams

Ice cream wafers    40grams

Praline paste and crunchy ice cream wafers are available commercially.  The latter are sometimes called Crêpes dentelles or Wafer rolls.  There are recipes for hazelnut praline paste on the web if you can't buy it.

Melt the chocolate and praline paste in the microwave until liquid and stir in the lightly broken ice cream wafers and the coarsely chopped toasted nuts.  Spread into a thin18cm disc on a cake base or plastic container lid.  Wrap in cling film and freeze until needed.

 

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White Chocolate and Hazelnut Ganache

Ingredients:

Gelatine powder        3grams

Water                     18grams

Toasted  hazelnuts   40grams

Milk                      150grams

White chocolate      50grams

Cream                  215grams

Praline Paste           80grams 

Heat the milk and infuse with chopped hazelnuts for at least an hour.  Soak the gelatine in water for 20 minutes or more. Strain the milk and reheat it, if necessary, to about 60°C and add the gelatine mix.  Gelatine doesn't like to be heated too much because it will lose its gelling power.  Melt the chocolate in the cream with the praline paste in a microwave, stirring from time to time, until dissolved and mix into the gelatine milk.  Mix well, sieve if you like, and store over night in the refrigerator with the surface covered in cling film to prevent a skin forming.  A day or two later whip the mixture until light and pipe or spread into a suitable 18 cm circular mould.  I used the bottom half of this rather expensive one. https://www.meilleurduchef.com/en/shop/pastry/cake-mould/shaped-moulds/sil-silicone-mould-kit-eclipse-silikomart.html

It gives an attractive dome shape, but the world wont end if it is a flat disc.  It just has to fit inside the pastry case.  Freeze the filled and wrapped mould until needed. 

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Shiny Chocolate Icing.

Ingredients:

Gelatine powder    6grams 

Water                 36grams

 

Sugar                105grams

Glucose syrup     38grams

Water                 52grams

Cocoa powder   38grams

Cream                98grams

 

The icing is prepared ideally on the day the tart is to be served.  Soak the gelatine in water for at least 20 minutes.  Heat the glucose sugar and water to 103°C and stir in the sifted cocoa or chocolate powder.  Stir thoroughly to produce a smooth mix.  Heat the cream briefly in the microwave and add to the chocolate mixture.  When the mix has cooled to 60°C stir in the gelatine mix.

The next step is to try to remove any air in the mixture so no bubbles form later.  The ideal equipment for this is a small stick blender.  In a tall narrow container blend the mixture for 5-10 minutes with the blender head always under the surface.  After a while the bubbles on the surface will disappear and the mixture will look shiny.  Sieve the mixture into a plastic jug and cover with cling film.  At this point the mixture will still be quite warm.  It needs to cool to 34°C so it is thick enough to pour as icing onto the frozen ganache.  When the mixture is at 34°C, place the frozen ganache on a support on a plate, a 10cm pastry ring is ideal, and gently pour the icing onto the ganache until it is entirely coated.  The excess will run off onto the plate. The icing should be completely flawless like glass.

 

Finish the assembly by placing the frozen crunchy disc onto the custard in the tart shell, and gently lowering the iced ganache in place.  Two forks are best for the job, with the tines under each side one can gently lift the ganache off its support and lower it onto the filled tart shell.  Or, less successfully, onto the floor and into the dog.

 

The Pâte de Dom 'You Tube' video shows each step in exact detail.

 

Ricotta cheesecake

 

Ricotta cheesecake. Lighter than the usual version, due to the addition of beaten egg-white just before baking. 

Ingredients 500g ricotta; 5eggs (4 of them separated); 90g sugar; 40g flour; 80g candied peel, chopped; 40g sultanas; 4 tbs rum.

 Method:

1. Heat oven to 190 degrees C.

2. Beat together the whole egg plus the egg yolks, along with the sugar and ricotta. Once it is uniformly smooth, beat in the rum, and then fold in the peel and the sultanas.

3. Separately, beat the egg whites until stiff, and then fold them into the mixture.

4. Pour the mixture into a 22cm spring-form tin (greased, and with the base lined) and bake for thirty five minutes.

5. Allow to cool for twenty minutes or so, before removing from the tin. Serve either warm or cold.

Champignons à la grecque

 

Another splendid cold starter, for summer. I love the complicated, earthy flavours which this treatment gives to the mushrooms. 

For two servings.

 Ingredients: 500g field mushrooms; ¾ pint water; ¼ pint olive oil; 1 tsp celery salt; bouquet garni; ½ tsp fennel seed; ½ tsp crushed coriander seed; 1 shallot, finely minced; juice of 1 lemon; 6 black peppercorns. 

Method:

1. Put everything apart from the mushrooms into a pan, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
2. Add mushrooms to the pan, trimmed as necessary, and simmer, covered, for a further 10 minutes.
3. Remove the mushrooms to a bowl, raise the heat and reduce the liquid in the pan until only about 1/8 pint remains. Pour this over the mushrooms, allow to cool, and then refrigerate. (You can sieve the liquid before you add it to the mushrooms, but frankly I think this is a bit prissy and risks losing flavour.)

 Serve, and savour.

Rabbit, boned, rolled, and stuffed

 

Delicious on the day, and arguably even better, served cold a day later, when the flavour of the jelly in which the vegetables sit is intense and splendid! 

Serves four – six. 

Ingredients: 1 boned rabbit; 3 slices parma ham; 1 tsp chopped rosemary and thyme; seasoning; 3 large carrots;2 sticks celery; 1 medium onion; 2cups white wine. 2 tbs olive oil. 

Method:

 

1. Peel one of the carrots, and slice it longitudinally into 4. Cut half of one of the celery sticks into pieces the same size as the carrot pieces. In a small pan of boiling, salted water, blanch the carrot and celery pieces until tender, about five minutes. Chop all of the remaining carrots and celery, along with the onion.
2. Heat the oven to 160 degrees C.
3. Lay the boned rabbit out, flat, and sprinkle it with the herbs, and season with salt and pepper. Lay the parma ham slices over the rabbit, and arrange the blanched carrot and celery so that the rabbit will be rolled up around them. Roll the rabbit, and secure it (either use trussing thread, or skewers….these days, I use a very useful powder which is called ‘meat glue’).
4. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole, and in this colour the rabbit on all sides. Remove the rabbit from the casserole and put into it the chopped onion, carrot, and celery. Over medium-high heat, cook the vegetables until they begin to collapse, and then return the rabbit to the casserole. Pour the wine over the top, and season the whole thing, quite generously.
5. On the stove, bring the mixture to the boil, and then cover it, and transfer to the pre-heated oven, for an hour.
6. Let it sit for five minutes or so before you slice the rabbit, as that way the slices are more likely to stay in one piece.
7. Serve two slices per person, along with a spoonful of the vegetables. Good theatre on the plate, and absolutely delicious.

Pasta con Ragù

 

It’s High Summer – too hot to faff in the kitchen. Hence, pasta con ragu (simple Spag Bog, in plain-speak).

 Ragù has many uses (with pasta, in risotto, in lasagne or ravioli…), and so it’s worth making a batch, and keeping in the fridge or freezer and use it up over time. 

Ingredients: 3 tbs olive oil; ½ cup each of finely diced carrot, onion, and celery; 2 cups minced beef; 1 tsp salt; 1 cup red wine; 1 can tomatoes. 

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a pan, and add to it the carrot, celery and onion. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, for about five minutes, until the contents have all collapsed.

2. Add the minced beef and salt. Continue cooking until the meat has lost its raw colour, and then add the wine.

3. Over high heat, reduce the wine by about half, and then add the tomatoes. As soon as the mixture comes to the boil, turn the heat down as far as it will go. Partially cover the pan, and leave to simmer for about an hour and      a half. Check it from time to time, to ensure nothing disastrous has happened – but basically you can just leave it to do its own thing.

And that’s it….

Granita of Raspberries, Red Wine, & Mint...

 

This is ….SO…seriously …delicious!

For four servings.

Ingredients: 500ml red wine (the lighter the wine, the more the raspberry flavour will come through; with a stronger wine, I find that the end result is more like blackcurrant than raspberry – which is equally delicious, but a different thing…); 75g sugar; half a dozen sprigs of mint; 300g fresh raspberries.

Method:

1. In a small pan, bring the wine, sugar, and mint sprigs to the boil, and then pour into a bowl.
2. Liquidise the raspberries, and then sieve them, and ad this puree to the wine in the bowl.
3. Allow to cool, then chill in the fridge, before churning to a soft, smooth texture (yes, I know a granita should traditionally be made in an ice tray in the freezer, breaking the crystals up from time to time; I just happen to prefer it this way, where it turns out more with the rich texture of a sorbet.)
4. Serve, garnished with more mint, if you like. And then, taste it and swoon…

Tart of Tomato and red peppper

 

A re-working of something from Robuchon. A phyllo and almond tart shell, filled with a thick purée of tomato and herbs, flavoured with garlic and onion, and, beneath a topping of tomato slices, a layer of finely diced red pepper. An excellent first course, at any time of the year.

For two individual tarts.

Ingredients: 1 sheet phyllo; 1 tbs slivered almonds; three medium tomatoes; 1 small onion; 2 cloves garlic; 2 tbs olive oil; 1/4 medium red pepper; 1 tsp dried thyme; approx 40g butter.

Method: 

1. Heat the oven to 190 degrees C. Melt the butter, and use some of it to brush the phyllo; divide the phyllo in 4, and use it to make two individual tart shells of two layers of phyllo each. Divide the slivered almonds between the two shells, between the two layers of pastry. Bake for about ten minutes, until crisp and brown, and remove from the oven.

2. Slice two of the tomatoes into thin rounds, and chop the remainder. Put the sliced tomatoes in a bowl, salt them lightly and then spoon a little melted butter over the top. Set aside. In the remaining melted butter cook the onion, finely diced, along with the chopped garlic, until it has softened,  and then add to this the chopped tomato and half of the dried thyme.Stirring from time to time, cook over high heat, until the whole mixture has reduced to a dense mass. Taste and season.

3. Pile the tomato mass into the pastry shells, then cover with a layer of finely diced red eper, and finally arrange the tomato slices over the top. Sprinkle the remaining thyme on top, and bake for about 25 minutes, just until the tomato starts to colour. Remove from the oven and drizzle a little olive oil over the surface of each tart. Allow to sit for a few minutes before transferring the tarts from their tins to serving plates.