{TWD} Soft Chocolate Blackberry Tarts

The overwhelming majority of Dorie Greenspan recipes that I've tried have been very good, but her tart recipes have been particularly outstanding. I'm always very excited the weeks when a tart assignment comes up in the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, and a two-tart month like March is an unprecedented special thrill!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Rachelle of Mommy? I’m Hungry! chose this tart for us to bake this week. You can find the recipe on her blog, or on page 354 of the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

- I used the same batch of gluten-free nut crust for this tart that I used for the Coconut Custard Tart from two weeks ago. I made the recipes back-to-back, making minis of both, and I still have a 7" tart crust in the freezer for another occasion.

- The recipe calls for raspberries, but Dorie says that other berries work nicely also. I've tasted chocolate and raspberry flavors together plenty of times, so this time I decided to try blackberries because I was curious to see how they'd combine with chocolate (and because I love blackberries!)


- There are two kinds of chocolate in this recipe: milk chocolate and bittersweet chocolate. Dorie says the interplay of the two chocolate intensities is what makes this tart so good. I used Valrhona milk chocolate fevres, and a small block of Valrhona bittersweet chocolate. In the pictures you can see the two chocolates, the berries, and the nut crust.

- I made 1/3 recipe, which I was hoping would yield 3 mini tarts. I lined 3 baked tart crusts with blackberries, but there really was only enough filling for two, so my berry-to-chocolate ratio was only 2/3 of what it should have been.

- My tarts were in my oven at 280 degrees on "convect bake" for 18 minutes when I checked them and found them done (if not just a tad over-baked.) I was expecting the tart filling to be pudding-like in consistency, but mine looked a lot more like soft brownies.

- I served the tarts with soft whipped cream. My daughter was visiting home the weekend I baked them, and she had one for dessert after dinner Saturday and the other one for breakfast on her way to the airport the next morning. Both times were dark, so I'm sorry to say I didn't get decent pictures of the tarts before they were history. I had a bite of each of her tarts (quality control check, of course!)


the verdict:

The unusual taste combination of chocolate and blackberry was a wonderful find! I don't always love the fruit and chocolate combination, but I even wished that I'd put more blackberries in these tarts. I was also happy to find that the chocolate and berry flavors were strong enough to match well with the walnut/pecan crust.