This salted caramel chocolate tart is made with a chocolate cookie crust served with a generous sprinkling of flaky sea salt that brings out the flavor of the chocolate and tempers the sweetness of the caramel. Th first thing is to make the chocolate cookie crust. Place your all-purpose flour in a bowl then add cocoa powder and salt then give that a quick whisk to combine hat then set that aside for a minute. Place the unsalted butter softened to room temperature in a different bowl then mix that with confectioners sugar then mix that with your mixer. After you are done mixing add two egg yolks with half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, mix those in and to finish that off, add your dry ingredients little by little and mix them until well incorporated.
Once that has come together, you are ready to compress that into our tart pan. Dumo your dough into the middle of the pan and then press that with your fingers covering all the bottom and then a little bit u the sides. Once you are done, prick that all over with a fork then pop that into the freezer for about 15 minutes an then onto 350 degrees Fahrenheit oven for about 15 minutes. When your crust if finished baking, let it cool. Now, onto the salted caramel, put your granulated sugar in a saucepan then turn that to medium heat. Add a quarter cup of water, light corn syrup, and sea salt. Le that cook, at first it’s going to get clear then it’s going to take on some color and you don’t want to stir that, it will work itself out. Once your caramel has formed a beautiful amber color, ad six tablespoons of unsalted butter and let that bubble a little bit.
To that, add heavy whipping cream and finish that off with vanilla extract. Keep stirring until it smoothens really nicely, continue cooking that over medium heat for about ten minutes just to let it thicken a little bit. Once your caramel has thickened up, remove from the heat and pour it into the chilled tart crust and put that into the fridge for three hours. The caramel is going to thicken during that process. For the very last step, you are going to top that with chocolate ganache. Heat up half a cup of heavy cream and chop up about 4 ounces of chocolate then let them sit for 60 seconds the stir them up until its nice and glossy and smooth. Once your chocolate is smooth, pour that all over the top kind of spread it out with your spatula. Once that is smooth to your liking, pop that in the fridge for an hour to let it set up.
Once its all finished, put one last touch with a little bit of flakey sea salt right on top and you can begin to cut your Salted Caramel Chocolate Tart.
Ingredients;
Crust;
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1 large egg yolk
- 3 Tbsp. chilled milk or water
Filling;
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
- 6 Tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
Ganache;
- 4 oz. semisweet chocolate (do not go above 70% cacao), finely chopped
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- Flaky sea salt
Instructions;
- Whisk cocoa, sugar, salt, and 1 2/3 cups flour in a medium bowl. Add butter and toss to coat.
- Using your fingers, smash the butter into dry ingredients until it nearly disappears and mixture holds together when squeezed.
- Make a well in the center and add yolk and milk. Using a fork, gradually incorporate flour mixture until you’ve got a shaggy dough.
- Knead a couple of times in bowl until no dry spots remain and the dough is smooth.
- Flatten into a 3/4″-thick disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and chill until firm, about 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Let dough sit 5 minutes to soften slightly.
- Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 14″ round about 1/8″ thick, dusting with more flour as needed to prevent sticking.
- Lift dough on one edge and throw a pinch of flour on the surface.
- Slide bottom of the tart pan under the dough, positioning it roughly in the center.
- Fold in edges of the dough so it’s resting fully on insert; place inside tart ring and unfold edges so they gently slump against sides of the pan and the excess dough is hanging over the edges.
- Press dough firmly into bottom of the pan with floured hands, then use a straight-sided measuring cup to firmly press sides of the dough into grooves and up sides of the pan.
- Roll the pin over the top edge of pan to shear off excess dough flush with pan.
- Prick bottom of dough all over with a fork and chill in freezer until very firm, 10–15 minutes.
- Place tart pan on a rimmed baking sheet and line with a sheet of parchment paper or foil.
- Fill with pie weights or dried beans and bake until edges of crust are set and starting to look dry, 12–15 minutes.
- Return crust to oven and bake until firm and dry all over, 18–22 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
Filling:
- Bring sugar, cream of tartar, and 1/3 cup water to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-low, stirring with a heatproof spatula until dissolved.
- Cook, swirling pot often but not stirring, until mixture turns deep amber and wisps of smoke rise from the surface, 8–10 minutes.
- Remove caramel from heat and immediately stir in butter a piece at a time until smooth.
- Gradually stir in cream, then add salt. Transfer caramel to a heatproof measuring glass. Let cool until warm.
- Pour caramel into cooled tart shell. Chill until caramel is set, at least 1 hour.
Ganache;
- Place chocolate, cream, and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.
- Stir with a heatproof spatula until ganache is smooth, about 5 minutes.
- Let cool until thickened enough to hold an indentation from a spoon.
- Remove tart from refrigerator and scrape ganache over caramel.
- Using a spoon, gently work ganache over the surface, creating decorative swooshes and swirls.
- Sprinkle with sea salt; let sit until the ganache has lost its sheen, 10–15 minutes.
