There May Be Snow On The Roof, But There's Chocolate Underneath. Chocolate Raspberry Tart With Brown Butter Crust.

When I was consulting for the Cocoa Planet Restaurant here in Sonoma a few years back, I was hired because of my gluten free baking. The restaurant was entirely gluten free, and there were a number of vegan recipes on the menu because the owner/founder was a celiac. I myself am not gluten intolerant but I seem to have so many friends that are, that I started working on recipes that could accommodate them when they came over for dinner at our house.

Coming up with gluten free recipes after 30 years of Indian cooking was not too difficult. It's easy to make absolutely delicious Indian mains, and desserts that are gluten free and also vegan or vegetarian, whatever one might wish. Translating traditional  western desserts to the gluten free world were a bit more complicated. I decided to do this by doing some research and using the wide varieties of flours I had used in my Indian cooking. I was looking for a  custom blend. Something I could make in volume for entertaining at home. That's what led to the restaurant gig. 

The owners  who also owned Cocoa Planet Chocolate decided to open a cafe. They'd had desserts at my house and asked if I had more recipes. Sure thing, recipes and the blends to make them work. So while I was doing my regular screenwriting with my husband/writing partner during the week, I'd experiment with a lot of desserts and other recipes on the weekend. We'd all meet for dinner on Saturday night and we'd try whatever I'd been working on during the week. That's how the menu shaped up leaving me with three big books of dishes and recipes that we put together, which became the chefs books at the restaurant. 

From 2015, through 2018 while the restaurant was open I had a ball experimenting, cooking, and tasting. The owners later sold the place and moved states, but I've kept up my gluten free baking and cooking.

Since  the holiday season is upon us, this is the time when everyone is looking around for sweet treats to feed visiting family and friends.  This chocolate raspberry tart is a very simple and straightforward and is pretty easy to make. The brown butter crust which I'd heard of but never tried before really makes this dish. You can make regular pie crust but brown butter is really the way to go. Plus, it's fast!

Chocolate Raspberry Tart With Brown Butter Crust

Here's What You Need:

Brown Butter Crust:

 3 oz unsalted butter

1 Tbs vegetable oil (not olive)

3 Tbs water

! Tbs caster sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 rounded cup all purpose flour 

or My Gluten Free Crust Blend Recipe*

*Gluten Free Crust Blend

4 cups sorghum flour

4 cups tapioca flour

2 cups finely sifted almond flour

4 tsp xanthan gum

Mix everything together well . This is the basic pie crust, tart, quiche shell mixture. There is a separate blend for cakes.

Here's What To Do:

1: Heat the oven to 410 degrees. Grease and 8 or 9 inch  tart mold with a removable bottom.

2 : Cut the butter into small pieces and place them in a medium size oven proof Pyrex bowl. Add in water, salt, sugar, vegetable oil.

3: Place the bowl in the oven until the mixture is bubbling and starting to brown. This takes about 15 minutes.

4: Remove the bowl from the oven. Turn the temperature down to 375 degrees and immediately add the flour mixture to the hot butter mixture. This may spatter so be careful! 

5: Stir the crust mixture together with a heat-proof spatula until it forms a ball. When the dough has cooled enough to handle, press it into an even layer filling the bottom and sides of the tart pan.

6: Pierce the bottom all over with a fork and press the sides of the dough with a fork to reinforce them.

7: Bake the crust in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes or until it's golden brown. Take the crust out and set it aside to cool completely before filling it.

 

The Filling:

Here's What You Need:

1: 1 cup of heavy whipping cream 

2: 8 and 1/2 ozs of good quality dark chocolate  broken into pieces

3: 1 oz unsalted butter

Here's What To Do:

1: Heat the cream until it is just starting to boil. Take the cream off the heat and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Stir it until it's creamy and all the chocolate has melted. 

2: Add in the butter and blend well

The Magic:

  1: Pour the chocolate mixture into the cooled crust and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. This can be made up to 24 hours in advance. Keep it refrigerated.

2: Top with raspberries. 

3: Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

 There it is Chocolate Raspberry Tart.  No raspberry fans at home, this can be done with strawberries too.

  Coming up next , more desserts and other holiday treats both Indian and Western. Follow along with Twitter @/kathygori

 

Put A Cork In It! Bouchons For An Alternative Thanksgiving Dessert

One of my favorite holiday desserts isn't pumpkin pie, or mince pie, or any other variety of cake tart, cookies etc that I've made over the years. Instead, give me a good, chocolaty, fudgy, bouchon  (Little Corks) with a simple fior di latte gelato  on the side, and I'm happy. This is what I'm serving on Thursday and I'm sharing the recipe now. I've always made my bouchons  gluten free, since I've had so many guests and family members over the years avoiding gluten. I'm not celiac so the recipe can be made with regular flour, or gluten free. I'll also post my formula for gluten free cake flour at the end if one cares to use that.  So, on to Bouchons.

Bouchons are tasty little dark chocolate cork shaped cakes. They make a great end to any meal accompanied by a sorbet, or ice cream. They can be made ahead ready to go for your special meal, what's not to like?

Bouchons

Here's What You Need 

1:  1/4 cup plus 1 and 1/2  Tbs flour or (gluten free flour mixture *)

2: 5 oz unsalted butter room temperature

3:1/2 cup  plus 2 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

4: 2 eggs

5: 1/8 tsp kosher salt

6: 3/4 cup plus 1 Tbs caster sugar

7: 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

8: 5 oz of chopped dark chocolate

9: powdered sugar for dusting

Plus a silicone baba mold which can be gotten for about 10 bucks at most places that sell baking stuff, or  target, walmart, amazon,  the usual joints.

Here's  What To Do:

Sift the flour cocoa powder and salt together and whisk to make sure it's well blended.

Mix the eggs , sugar, and vanilla in a  stand mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk on med/low until it's well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with the mixer running. Add in the butter and flour mixture alternating between the two. Do this in 3 stages.

Take the bowl off the mixing stand and hold in the cut up pieces of chocolate. Set your batter aside in a cool place (Not The Fridge) for about 2 hours to rest.

 When you're ready to bake set the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the bouchon, (baba) mold sheet. Fill each mold with batter to just below the rim.

Put the molds on a cookie sheet and bake for about 16 minutes .Take the mold out of the oven and let sit for about 10  minutes so your bouchons firm up.

Unmold them and set them right side up on a cooling rack. When they are cooled, lightly dust the tops with powdered sugar

 So there you are, Bouchons  one damn delicious, chocolatey treat for all your holiday endeavors. The if some wiseguy asks for pumpkin pie, just tell them to put a cork in it.

* My Gluten Free Flour Mixture For Cakes:

3 cups brown rice flour

1 and 1/3 cups potato starch

2/3 cup tapioca starch

2 tsp xanthan gum

 Mix this together into a large batch, it can be doubled or tripled to make more.