Chocolatey chocolate tart and leftover egg yolks

Egg yolks have so much potential.

I hate to waste a good egg yolk because of this potential. I also hate the idea of letting good food go to waste!

This is a great way to use up egg yolks after you’ve made meringues. I made some pretty spooky meringues for Halloween (as you may or may not have seen on my Instagram) so I had five egg yolks to play with. This recipe didn’t use them all up, but it got rid of four and Norman enjoyed lapping up the final yolk!

I took the meringues and this tart to a Halloween party. I say party, but it was better than that – it was a group of my friends watching Hocus Pocus and eating yummy food. The tart works with out without meringue ghosts, in case you were wondering.

We’re good company.

The host even carved a pumpkin butternut squash for us. It was pretty impressive.

Enough about Halloween though – I implore you to make this tart, your tastebuds will thank you!

Also, if you’ve still got leftover egg yolks, why not try making your own lemon curd?

Chocolatey chocolate tart

Pastry

• 2 cups plain flour
• 135g butter
• 4 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar
• 4 tbsp cold water

Filling

• 400g good quality dark chocolate
• 400ml/14fl oz thickened cream
• 2 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup sugar
• 50g butter

To make your pastry, rub the flour and butter together until they look like breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and egg yolks into the mixture and mix well – the egg will cling to some parts of the crumby mixture, and if you don’t mix it well enough you risk ending up with a mottled pastry.

Your pastry should be coming together well, but it will still be crumbly. Add the water, one tablespoon at a time and mix until the pastry clings together well. Press the mixture into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200C grease a 20cm pie tin.

Dust a clean surface with flour and roll your pastry out to about 1cm thick. I like my tart crust nice and thick – if you don’t, maybe roll your pastry out a bit thinner. Press your pastry into the prepared tart tin and trim off the excess.

Grab a fork and poke a few holes in the pastry, then cover the base with baking paper and fill with baking weights. Pop this in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove the baking weights and return it to the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set to one side.

While the base is cooling, break your chocolate up and pop it in a pan with the cream, vanilla and sugar. Slowly bring this mixture to a boil, add in the butter and stir regularly so that the mixture doesn’t burn.

If you want your chocolate filling to be completely velvety smooth, be really vigilant with ensuring that all of the chocolate is melted. If you’re like me, however, and like to find surprise chunks of chocolate in the tart, you can be a bit lazy. I make sure that the chocolate is about 95% melted and then I take it off the heat.

Allow the chocolate mixture to cool slightly before putting it in your cooled tart shell. Fill it right up to the brim and drink the remaining mixture. It’s delicious!

Pop the tart in the fridge for at least two hours. If it’s still wobbly in the middle, put it in the freezer for 20 minutes and it will be perfect.

Serve in very small slithers, accompanied by berries.