I love it when things push me out of my comfort zone. I combined three different recipes to create this gorgeous Berry Tart! I’m pretty proud of myself too. It wasn’t without some trepidation and learning though! If you make ganache on a regular basis, please skip ahead and don’t read the following imperfections of a regular non-ganache making person.

Are we alone now? No professional ganache makers among us? Whew! Let me tell you, this one freaked me out a little. I’ve only made ganache in the safety of a cooking class with an instructor ready if I screwed up. This time it was just me, some chocolate, heavy cream and a bit of butter. How hard could it be? Well, let me say, I am thankful for the expertise of Alton Brown and my microwave!

The instructions for ganache are simple: Chop 8 oz of good quality chocolate and put it in a bowl. That’s great, except if you think “Cool! 8 oz is a cup so I only need a cup of chopped chocolate.” Wrong. You need EIGHT OUNCES of chopped chocolate. If you don’t have a digital scale in your kitchen, please go get one as soon as possible. Turns out, eight ounces of chopped chocolate was almost equal to a cup and three-quarters. Lesson learned. We move on to “Sara attempts to make ganache, TAKE TWO!”

The next ganache instruction is “In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to a very low simmer.” The cream is used to melt the chocolate and needs to be warm enough to do that and melt butter later. This does not mean, when you see little bubbles around the edges of the pan it’s at a “low simmer.” Little bubbles around the edges of the pan mean you need to let it heat more! Otherwise you’ll be using memories of Good Eats “The Art of Darkness III” and your microwave! My cream wasn’t warm enough so I had to put my chocolate and cream mix in the microwave for just a few seconds, twice, to get the right consistency. I could have saved myself the hassle by simply bringing the cream to the right temperature the first time. Every one of you will do that now, right? I hope you’re nodding because I’m going to invite the ganache makers back to the conversation and we want to be cool.

Ganache lovers! Welcome back! Let’s get to tart making, shall we?

I used my grandmothers Pate Sucree (Pastry made with Sugar) recipe. Then, I followed Joy The Baker’s chocolate ganache recipe, and finally, topped this beauty with tons of fresh berries a simple recipe for sweet cream!

Let’s start with the tart!

Tart Crust

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 TBLS sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 TBLS unsalted butter, cut into pieces and frozen
1 egg yolk
1 TBLS plus 1 tsp cold water

In your food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the frozen butter, egg yolk and 1 TBLS cold water. Process for 5-10 seconds. If the dough looks too dry, add the additional 1 tsp water, but don’t over process it.

(You can do this by hand, if you don’t have a food processor. Don’t freeze your butter if you do it by hand but it does need to be very well chilled. Sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the cold butter and use a pastry blender or your fingers to mix until the dough resembles coarse bread crumbs. Beat together the egg yolk and the water, then add it to the dough and stir until just blended.)

Pour the dough into a round 8 inch tart pan with a removable bottom, or you can use 6 mini tart pans for individual desserts, press dough gently around the bottom and up the sides to form a solid crust. Place the pan it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

While the crust is chilling, make your ganache!

Chocolate Ganache filling

8 ounces dark or milk chocolate, finely chopped
8 ounces heavy cream
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces

Place your chopped chocolate in a medium bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan, over medium heat, bring the cream to a very low simmer. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for two minutes. Use a whisk and start stirring in the center of the bowl. Don’t lift the whisk off the bottom of the bowl, but continue stirring from the center out until the mixture is smooth. Add your butter chunks and use a spatula to stir the ganache until the butter is completely melted and your mixture is nice and glossy. Set aside to cool to room temperature and thicken up.

While you are waiting for the tart crust to finish chilling and the ganache to thicken, pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.

When the oven is hot (AND the hour is up for chilling your tart crust) remove the tart from the refrigerator, place a piece of buttered-foil (butter side down) on the tart (or use beans or a pie chain, whatever you want!) to weigh down the tart and keep it from bubbling while it bakes. Place the tart in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until it’s a light golden brown.

Allow the tart to cool completely.

Berries and Sweet Cream Topping

1 cup heavy cream
3 TBLS powdered sugar
3/4 tsp Almond extract

1 1/2 cups assorted fresh berries

In a medium bowl, using a hand blender (or do it yourself with a whisk!) beat all the ingredients (except the fruit) together until you get soft peaks or it starts to look like Cool Whip! But don’t use Cool Whip, this tastes better!!

To assemble this delicious-ness, spoon ganache filling into the cooled tart shell. Spread evenly with a spatula. Pile the berries on the ganache and top with sweetened cream.

These are well worth the effort to make for that someone special for Valentines Day, or, you know, just because it’s Tuesday. Either way, have fun!