The birthday tart

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My sister requested for a tart when I asked her what would she like as her birthday cake. I even allowed her to choose from my newly-acquired cookbook- Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme, written by Dorie Greenspan. Of all the mouthwatering chocolate recipes, she happily settled for the “Chocolate Raspberry tart” which she thought looked gorgeous.

I checked with my sis several times in the week to make absolute sure that she didn’t want to change her mind. She’s usually unpredictable and sometimes fickle-minded. This time, she wasn't.

In any case, a tart is something that I would gladly bake any day. It definitely beats having to bake the challenging low-fat chocolate cake which she requested from her friend.

The recipe wasn’t complicated but it requires the best and sometimes not so cheap ingredients such as the raspberries and the bittersweet chocolate which I settle for a mixture of 75% and 65% Lindt chocolate.

The sweet pastry dough was made a day in advance since the dough needed to rest in the fridge. J and I made a rather big portion of dough as advised by Mr Herme himself that it would allow for better control and consistency. Vanilla bean replaced the extract so as to give the dough a more intense flavour.

On the day itself, we baked the tart crust fully before assembling the chocolate ganache. Due to miscalculations in timing, we ended up making the ganache a tad too early (As the ganache needed to be baked immediately as soon as it is done).

I was pretty jittery about how it would turn out as I did not want to mess up my sis’s birthday “cake”. I’m both relieved and glad to say that the tart was well-received (Despite it not being the best looking tart). My sis even asked for a second serving. In a flash, the entire tart was gone. That’s a moment that every baker would want to experience!

A pity we didn’t think of getting candles so my sis had to make do with blowing out imaginary ones! Happy birthday Jiam! Hope that you like the “cake” and the present! Have a blast in Bangkok!

Happy, happy birthday!

Labels: baking, tarts