A Thick Tart Makes Thin Pastry

My attempt at the famous milk chocolate tart

I’ve been wanting to up my baking game for a while now. In the few months I’ve been baking, I’ve progressed from cupcakes to lemon drizzle cake, taken part in a cupcake masterclass and made an array of cake pops. Did I mention I recently made 48 chocolate cupcakes for a friend’s engagement party? I don’t even know who I am anymore; I only used to sit in the kitchen if I needed to warm up.

While I was away for 10 days sunning myself on a Bajan beach, my co-workers were plotting my next challenge: Andy Bates’s Milk Chocolate Tart.

It’s Food Network UK’s second birthday this week and to celebrate, they decided that I should whip up our most popular recipe from all of last year for the office. This (scary) news was gently broken to me on Thursday afternoon by my baking boss extraordinaire. How could I say no!

So, after a proud moment in my local supermarket when buying our first tart ring, myself and my sous chef (the ever-helpful boyfriend) set to work.

The famous tart itself

Daunted does not even describe the way I felt about making pastry for the first time. I knew it would be hard to get right, and knew that there’s a certain knack to rolling it evenly and in a circular shape. But I tried three times and got so frustrated with the misshaped, uneven mess in front of me that the sous chef took over.

It didn’t help though. The first round of pastry was a disaster. It had sunk quite drastically on one side, and was so thin on the other that it had started snapping. Never a good sign. I’ll be honest and say I nearly wept when I took it out of the oven. I had believed that my first attempt would of course have been a success, I mean, I had Andy on standby via YouTube clip. On the plus side, it tasted nice.

I think we had over-worked the dough, rolled it too thinly on one side and not been generous enough when we had lined the ring. Don’t you just hate hindsight? By this point I’d had enough and we called it a night.

After disappointing the content team on Monday morning by arriving empty handed, I asked them for their top pastry tips. I made note of the most important one, “just buy the base readymade.” Now determined not to be defeated, I called my sous chef and demanded we try again but also buy a ready-made pastry case – just to be on the safe side.

By the time I got home from work I had a fresh ball of dough waiting for me in the fridge. With a lot of flour, some careful rolling and some nifty work with a borrowed rolling pin (haven’t got round to getting myself one yet) we had the pastry base. After blind baking for 20 minutes we noticed that our beautifully crimped edges had fallen to the bottom of the oven. Not a promising start.

But don’t worry, this is where things started to look up. It hadn’t completely crumbled. We baked it until it was golden brown and then added our chocolate mixture. The sous chef has assured me that it tastes good but frankly the mixture of single cream, whole milk, chocolate and eggs would make me pass out, as I’m a little dairy intolerant. I now know this is how torture feels.

Inspired by Andy who likes his tarts as thick as possible

The delivery

We all know Andy likes his tarts as thick as possible, but would mine cut the mustard? I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but it looked incredible. I handed over the chocolate reins to Sanjana, queen of precision and detail, to cut the perfect slice for the all-important reveal photo.

For me, it’s all about the taste. Here are the reactions from the office:

‘It tastes just like an Aero, with tiny little bubbles inside.’ Hannah, weird and wonderful food-fact guru.

‘Like I said last year, I like my puddings like my men – smooth, sweet, gooey in the middle and very, very rich. I wasn’t disappointed.’ Sanjana, spice whizz kid.

‘Crumbly pastry and dense chocolaty ganachey goodness. Totally and utterly delicious. Worth risking your allergies for.’ Holly, content team newbie.

This was definitely my toughest baking challenge yet. There were nearly tears and tantrums over the pastry, but all of this was saved by the look of pure shock on the teams’ faces that I had not only made the tart, but that it tasted good.

Go me.

What should I bake next?

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By Jo Cotterell