Chocolate, Caramel and Nut Tart with Chocolate Shortcrust Pastry.

Oscar’s happy cake dance!

So lately I’ve been trying to be as healthy as possible – you know the drill, exercising, eating well and cutting down on sugar and booze. So far, it’s been going relatively well but somedays you just need to give yourself a break and indulge! Last Saturday, I decided I would do just that – Oscar offered to supply dinner, Lisa brought the delicious red wine and I was in charge of dessert…

I don’t do things in halves people – this tart is seriously full on!

I’m pretty proud of the way it turned out and suggest you give it a go! You could use pecans for this tart, or any nut really. I had walnuts and almonds in the house so used a combination of those. I’m glad I threw in the walnuts as almonds are quite sweet and you needed the walnuts to cut through the caramel a bit.

I also used rice malt syrup but you could use maple syrup if you prefer however, I recommend using rice malt syrup if you can get your hands on it as it’s not quite as sweet and because of the copious amounts of chocolate in this tart you want something to balance it otherwise it’ll be SWEET overload.

The bits and pieces

Chocolate Shortcrust Pastry

1 1/4 cups plain flour

100g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp cocoa powder

Throw everything in a bowl and rub butter into mixture until it turns into a crumb consistency. Add 1 tablespoon of cold water if dough is too dry. Form into a ball and refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 150°C or a little hotter if your oven isn’t a beast like mine! Grease a tart case or cake tin.

Pie Filling

150g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

180g nuts of your choice, roughly chopped

2/3 Cup rice malt syrup

1/2 Cup brown sugar

3 free-range eggs, lightly beaten

Grab your pastry out of the fridge and roll out between two sheets of baking paper. You want it about 1cm thick. Press into prepared tart case or tin and trim edges.

Blind bake for about 20 minutes (bake with baking weights or rice). Remove weights and bake for another 15minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Place chocolate and nuts onto cool pastry and distribute evenly. In a mixing bowl mix together remaining ingredients and pour over nuts and chocolate.

Bake for 20-30 minutes. The mixture will still be a bit gooey but will set more once slightly cooled.

Let cool for 5-10 minutes (if you can wait!!) before serving with fresh cream or ice-cream.

DEEEEEELISH!