Chocolate fondant tart

What’s better than a chocolate fondant? A chocolate fondant tart! I recently came up with a recipe for the ultimate dessert, a wonderful chocolate fondant, one that when opened is poured on a plate and makes everyone who tastes it want more and more. The recipe has become one of the most viewed on the blog, even though it is so “young”.

What is more comforting than a crunchy dough that embraces a runny chocolate fondant? A wonderful combination of textures and flavors that together create a perfect bite. Not only do we like crunchy carbs, they are much more comforting.

Note that the baking time of the chocolate fondant tart is longer than the baking time of the “simple” fondant because when you bake a filling in a dough, the baking procedure is completely different from baking the same filling in a dough-free mold.

Chocolate fondant tart
4 ring molds 8 cm, height 5 cm
(or 6 smaller rings)

---

Ingredients

Pastry Dough:
170 g all-purpose flour
20 g almond meal
60 g confectioner’s sugar
2 g salt
100 g cold butter, cubed
30 g (half) egg, lightly beaten

Chocolate fondant:
225 g butter
200 g dark chocolate, chopped (70%-80%)
120 g caster sugar
100 g flour (T45 is better)
365 g eggs 

Preparation
1. Pastry dough: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, almond meal, confectioner’s sugar and salt.
2. Using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed, then add the butter and mix until it resembles coarse meal (sablage). You also can do this in a food processor or by hand, crumbling the butter into the flour
mixture until coarse and sandy in texture.
3. Switch to the dough hook and add the egg. Mix until the ingredients come together into a ball of dough. Remove from the mixer bowl and knead briefly on your work surface until well combined.
4. Lightly sprinkle the top and bottom of the ball of dough with flour (be sure to flour both sides!), put it between two sheets of parchment paper, and lightly flatten it into a disk (don’t roll it out completely). Transfer the dough, with the paper, to the refrigerator and chill for 2 hours.
5. Remove from the fridge, and roll out the dough to a thickness of 3 mm.
6. Line the rings with the dough, making sure that the sides are fully filled in and straight so that they don’t collapse during baking. Using a knife, gently trim the overhanging edges.
7. Freeze the dough-lined rings for about half an hour.
8. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius, and place the dough-lined rings on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
9. Line a parchment paper over each tart. Fill with dry beans or pie weights. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven, then carefully remove the weights and the parchment paper, and return to oven for another 15-18 minutes until golden.
11. Remove the baked crusts from the oven and cool on a rack.
12. Chcocolate fondant: Preheat the oven to 190C degrees, place crusts (with the rings) on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
13. In a small pan melt butter and add chocolate, stir till chocolate is melt. 
14. In a medium bowl combine sugar and flour, add eggs and whisk together till combined to a smooth batter.
15. Pour chocolate mixture into the batter and whisk together till combined to a smooth chocolate batter.
16. Transfer the batter into a piping bag or a plastic bag, with one of the edges snipped off. Fill the tart crusts to the top.
17. Bake for 14-16 mins until the tops have formed a crust.
18. Remove from the oven, then leave to sit for 10 minutes. When the fondant tart reaches room temperature, remove the ring molds and dig in.

Bon-Appétit
Sharon