Chocolate and passion fruit together are one of my favourite combinations. For this tart, the chocolate and passion fruit filling are swirled together and encased by a chocolate pastry. The tart is delicious on its own or can be accompanied by some pouring cream.
Chocolate Pastry
- 175g plain flour
- 40g cocoa powder
- 50g icing sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 100g butter
- 1 egg
In a food processor, mix the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and butter. Be careful not to over mix. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and pulse until it comes together in to a ball. Take the pastry, pat it down in to a flat disc shape and wrap in cling film. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Grease a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin by brushing a thin layer of butter all over. Take your chilled pastry and roll out between 2 sheets of cling film . Once the pastry is about the thickness of a pound coin, pop in to the tin. Press the pastry in to the sides all the way around then pop back in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes. Leave the pastry hanging over the edges – it will be trimmed later.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C and place a baking tray in the oven to heat up. When the pastry has chilled, take out of the fridge and prick the bottom all over with a fork. Cover the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans (or rice, lentils etc). Bake on the preheated tray for 15 minutes. Take the beans out and trim the edges using a sharp knife. Place back in the oven without the paper or baking beans for another 10 minutes until the pastry is crisp. Once baked, leave in the tin and cool on a wire rack.
Chocolate & Passion fruit filling
- 8 passion fruits
- 185g butter
- 5 eggs
- 5 egg yolks
- 375g caster sugar
- 25g cornflour
- 100g dark chocolate
Scrape the insides out of all the passion fruits in to a large saucepan. Add the butter and about half the sugar and pop on a low heat. Keep on the low heat and slowly melt the butter and dissolve the sugar with the passion fruit.
Pass the passsion fruit mixture through a sieve into a bowl to remove all the passion fruit seeds.
Chop the chocolate in to small pieces with a sharp knife. Leave in a bowl until needed later.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining sugar together. Whisk in the cornflour. Finally, whisk in the eggs one at a time.
Put the passion fruit mixture back in the saucepan. Pour a small amount in to the egg mix and whisk together (this helps to heat the egg mix and hopefully stop the eggs cooking too quickly and scrambling). Pour all the egg mix in to the saucepan, turn up the heat and whisk continuously for a few minutes. You need to be careful not to burn the bottom so keep scraping round the sides with the whisk and move the pan around to reach all the base. After a couple of minutes the mixture will thicken considerably. Once it is thick and glossy, pour in to a jug.
This mixture makes about a litre. Pour around 400ml on to the chocolate and whisk together. The chocolate will melt in seconds as the mixture is so hot.
Finally, pour the passion fruit filling in to the cooled pastry case. Dollop spoonfuls of the chocolate mix all over the top and use a skewer to swirl the 2 mixes together. Pop in the fridge for at least a couple of hours to chill down and set, remove the tart from the tin and then dig in!
