Dark Chocolate Tart goes WAY downhill

If you're in the mood for a delightful, glossy, fun, sweet cooking blog, then you're definitely in the wrong place.

Sorry.

But really, last night was probably one of the weirdest, most confusing...times...in my entire cooking life. Here's what I learned: If the recipe says bitter/semisweet chocolate, use that. DON'T use unsweetened. Those are words of wisdom.

So, here's what happened. I made this tart - it's not a cake or a pie, but it doesn't have fruit, which is what I associate "tart" with. So I guess it's...just a chocolate tart?

Anyway. Focusing. Crust didn't present that much trouble. Moved on to the filling. Melt chocolate and butter, add eggs, sugar, and vanilla (ahem: in this house, it's bourbon only; we don't even have normal vanilla) and pour it into the crust and you're done. It's that easy. What can go wrong?

Wow.

Well, I used half unsweetened chocolate and half semisweet. This takes down the sugar content a whole lot, since there is absolutely zero sugar in unsweetened chocolate. Sugar acts as a baking agent, so when I stuck the tart thing in the oven and set the timer for twelve minutes, like it said on the recipe card (The Chocolate Deck, #33, Dark Chocolate Tart), after twenty-five minutes it was still far from done. Thirty-five. Nope. Forty? Oh just give up Maia, take it out.

So I did. It cooled, I took it out of the pan, we cut it and ate it. And what do you know? It's pretty good. I did overcook it just a little bit. The top is a bit crispy and the crust quite crumbly, but overall it's really not bad.

 

The pan of course started leaking halfway through, so I stuck our old battered, revolting baking sheet under it. That's why that picture kind of looks...horrible.

My family liked it, though.

 Admittedly, it was a bit overdone...but it's really chocolatey. Very intense. Very intense.

The Verdict: Decent. Next time I'll only use semisweet, and maybe it'll cook in twelve minutes instead of forty.

If I can get my nerve up, I'll be making spanakopita soon - I'm a bit nervous because Dad says it's quite difficult. "When your mother and I made it, I spent most of the time swearing." I believe it. It's the filo dough - it just tears. It's delicious, though, apparently, so worth it.

Ciao!