Silver threads in mist
cozy thoughts bloom like winter buds
a taste of pleasure
About the cookie crust chocolate tart…
Dear friends,
Happy New Year! Hope it brings you a lot of joy and health.
After the holiday bonanza (we went back home for 10 days), it’s time to get back to some normalcy. I honestly missed my kitchen, and I couldn’t wait to get back to baking bread and developing more recipes.
For a while now, I’ve had this idea to do a chocolate dessert of sorts, something that doesn’t take much time to prepare but still indulgent and flavourful. I noticed the last development I’ve done on the sweet side was back in summer, and even though we should eat sweets in moderation, every season should have a staple dessert that we can confidently reach out to any time we need.
So I started thinking and researching…
By the way, do you have an avid cookie eater in the house? I do! My husband eats cookies for breakfast on a daily basis, and I noticed there are always lots of crumbs left at the bottom of the packaging, so I decided to store them in a jar, thinking of a way to reuse them somehow.
One day, looking at how many cookie crumbs I piled up already, I thought to myself “Why not blitzing these crumbs into a pie crust?”, and I could fill the inside with a chocolate “custard-y” filling so I could have my chocolate dessert, and reduce waste at the same time.
So, here we are, I present you a cookie crust chocolate tart, made using a variety of store-bought cookies.
It’s delicious, easy to do, sure to be a crowd pleaser, and very impactful to the eye despite its simplicity.
You can customise the crust to your own liking as much as you want; any type of cookie will work here, even though I think I prefer having not too many flavours going in at once. I think it would be really interesting trying using leftover Christmas cookies that are starting to get soggy, and maybe combining them with a boozy chocolate filling? Unless you want it to be kids friendly, in that case I would skip the alcohol.
The chocolate filling is somewhat in between a baked ganache and a brownie. It’s dense and gooey, it melts in the mouth and works brilliantly with the slightly salty crust. Also customizable, you can flavour it with vanilla essence, coffee, cinnamon, almond extract, brandy, and so on. I used 70% dark chocolate here, because is my favourite chocolate and it’s also less sweet. But feel free to experiment with any chocolate you like (just keep an eye out to adjust the quantity of sugar). There is no limit to creativity here.
This cookie crust chocolate tart it’s great to eat it on the day, but gets even better the day after, even though I kind of won’t believe you if it lasts longer than that.
The essential ingredients for this cookie crust chocolate tart are: butter (of course), cookies, dark chocolate, double cream, eggs, a little bit of flour and cocoa powder, and sea salt flakes.
For this recipe I used my betrusted 6in (or 15cm⌀) tart tin, which is what I consider enough for two people, so bare that in mind in case you’re planning for a bigger size tart.
By the way, are you a not so big fan of chocolate? Do you like lighter texture? Why not trying out this delicious lemon and mascarpone tart?
Let’s get baking.
List of Ingredients
For the cookie crust base:
- Cookie crumbs 90gr
- Sea salt flakes 1gr
- Butter, melted 35gr
For the chocolate filling:
- Caster sugar 70gr
- Cocoa powder 11gr
- Plain/all purpose flour 12gr
- Egg 1 medium (around 50gr)
- Butter, melted, 20gr
- Double cream, 30gr
- Dark chocolate 70%, 23gr
- Vanilla extract, 3gr
Servings
- 2 people
- 1 very hungry person
Method
- Start with the base. Preheat the oven at 170C/340F. Blitz the cookies with the melted butter and the salt flakes until you obtain a fine wet crumb. Transfer directly into the tin (not greased) and pat down the mix, starting from the centre and pushing outwards until you cover the entire bottom and climbing up to the sides of the tin. You can use the back of a glass to help you press down the mix, just keep in mind it should be very compact and even throughout the tin (it will bake evenly this way). Parbake for 10-12 minutes (longer if you’re using a bigger tin).
- In the meantime, prepare the filling. Mix all the dry ingredients (sugar, cocoa powder and flour) in a big bowl. Gently melt the butter, and take off of the heat. Add the chocolate and mix until it has completely melted down (you can heat it up a little more if needed, but be very careful to not burn the chocolate), add the cream and finally the egg. Mix it up gently with a spatula to avoid incorporating a lot of air. Once the crust comes out of the oven, let it cool a couple of minutes, then fill it up with the chocolate mix and return it to the oven for 15-20 minutes (longer if you’re using a bigger tin), until the custard looks set around the edges.
- Let it cool completely and dust it off with some cocoa powder or icing sugar before serving.
Notes
I actually tried using a combo of caster and dark muscovado sugar for a deeper flavour, and oh boy! It was incredible. And, if you bake it a little while longer, the texture of the filling is more similar to a brownie, so from “cookie crust chocolate tart” becomes “cookie crust chocolate brownie tart”.
Also, you could try sprinkling some sea salt flakes on top of the tart, to get a “surprise effect”: every bite will have a different saltiness-sweetness balance.
Okay, I think you get the idea of how versatile this dessert is, and it takes only 30 minutes to bake from start to finish, how cool is that?
I can’t wait for you to try this cookie crust chocolate tart recipe, and if you do, please let me know in the comments, or on Instagram. I would love to hear your feedback.
With Love,
Simonetta