Dark Chocolate Coffee Cardamom Tart

Tarts always have such a beautiful aesthetic - this one combines quite a few different flavors in a delightfully semi sweet flavor that would be perfect with a cup of tea.

Have you ever made a tart before? I hadn't made a full sized one until I had to try this right before valentines day. It's the perfect bitter sweet flavor that anyone can enjoy, no matter their Valentine / Galentine / nonexistent life plan.

Now, my friends used to make fun of me for not just sticking to one recipe while baking. Really though, where is the fun in that? The recipe below is a perfect example of how changes can enhance a recipe and perhaps combine into a new dish!

This recipe is 80% inspired by Milk and Cardamom's recipe here. Her recipes are absolutely beautiful and I aspire to be at her level one day (stay tuned!). I started straying from her recipe pretty quickly, as I did not have the ingredients needed to make her salted chocolate shortbread crust - including the 3 types of flour.

Instead, I did a twist on an existing chocolate shortbread crust recipe. Here it is:

1. Melt 1 stick of butter, then add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2. Measure 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/3 cup of powdered sugar, 1/4 cup of cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp of salt, and 1/4 sp of cardamom powder together

3. Mix the butter into the dry ingredients until all moist

4. Press down into a 9 inch tart pan evenly

5. Bake at 350°F for 18-20 minutes

The next step of this recipe was to make the dark chocolate ganache filling, but when I had tasted the new crust, I felt like it needed a little more sweetness. I felt like being a little extra in this valentine's stress bake - so I decided to sweeten up this dessert a little bit with a layer of sweetened coconut mixed with cardamom as the bottom layer of the tart.

The filling of this tart was is a chocolate ganache - specifically a dark chocolate coffee ganache taken straight from the Milk and Cardamom's recipe above. Here are the changes I made to it:

1. I used semi-sweet chocolate rather than dark chocolate - mostly because that's what I had at hand, and I thought the combination of coffee and dark chocolate would be too bitter.

2. I also only used 2/3 of her recipe rather than the full recipe. I also reduced the amount of coffee, since I didn't have coffee grounds and only had instant coffee at hand.

3. Here are the final proportions used: 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tbsp instant coffee, 1 tsp cardamom crushed, 8 oz semi sweet chocolate, pinch of salt

Once the gooey coconut and ganache have been made, poured into the tart and put in the fridge to set, it's time to get creative with the aesthetic. I decided here to go with a simple asymmetric design of a white chocolate drizzle and crushed pistachios. When a bite is taken, the salt just adds the perfect contrast to the creamy tart - it's heavenly really!

Try it out and tag @crafteacoffee in your pics! I'd love to see what twists you take.