Chocolate and Mixed Berry Tarts

So, having made my start, here's the first post of my baking antics. I must admit straight off that I like working out and 'adjusting' and creating recipes, so I am sure that there will be numerous attempts at all of these recipes!

One of the things I've been meaning to do is a deeply geeky test of sponge cake methods. Make one the all-in-one method and the other by the 'proper' method with creaming butter and sugar etc. and then do a blind taste test! In this endeavour I started on Sunday by attempting to make a cake the proper way - but the eggs curdled! Apparently because the eggs weren't room temperature when used but straight from the fridge - and the result of curdled eggs is a heavier cake. So, as soon as that happened I just put everything else in and made it by the all-in-one method. So a slight failure, in making one half way between the two. The cake was good though, and the test shall happen again soon!

I spend most of my time at work looking at recipes - due to the intense tedium of my job, particularly if the systems are down so I can't do any work, which seems to happen more often than not! I find recipes, note them down - usually missing out vital parts it seems, and I found a recipe for chocolate tarts. 

Having watched 'The Waitress' recently (such a fun film, and definitely a film that'll make you want to bake!), there was a pie involving lots of chocolate and berries, so I thought I'd try and combine the two ideas. 

So, I went with the chocolate tart recipe for pastry:

4oz butter

8oz flour

2tbsp caster sugar

2tbsp ground almonds

1 egg

2-3 tbsp water

Made in the usual manner and left to rest in the fridge, something I've recently discovered seems to be necessary

The chocolate tart part:

10oz dark choc

3 eggs

1/2 oz caster sugar

2 1/2 fl oz double cream

You melt the choc. 

Beat eggs and sugar together until pale

Then stir everything together

I also bought some mixed frozen berries (Sainsbury's basics ftw), defrosted and crushed them, mixed some cornflour, added it to the berries and heated till the juices thickened.

So, I rolled and cut out the pastry, spooned a bit of the berry mix into each one and then spooned in the chocolate mixture. Now, the instructions I wrote down said to cook for 10-15 mins at 190C until just set. Now, at just over 10 mins, the edge ones were very slightly burnt and they'd risen a bit which I wasn't expecting. So, I think next attempt I must put in less mix and cook on a lower heat, maybe 170-180C. Possibly even pre-baking the pastry cases a bit too.

Anyway, they look quite picturesque so hopefully people at work will eat them (and the sponge cake) for me. They taste quite pleasant warm, so I'll have to see what they taste like in the morning. I'm quite intrigued as to how the pastry tastes, it seems somewhat overpowered by the berries and chocolate, but that normally seems the case, so I'm not sure how you tell what's good pastry and what's not! I do have plans to attempt yet another recipe, so I'll post that once I've done :)

So, here endeth the first baking post. Lets see what happens next…..