Dessert

Chocolate Tart with Poached Pears

I have always thought poached pears are delicious with a chocolate sauce. I made up this chocolate tart recipe and added some poached pears to it to decorate the choco tart and add this beautiful flavor association.

Serve 6 to 8 persons

Chocolate filling:
4 pears
20cl of whipping cream
150g of dark cooking chocolate
1 egg
2/3 drops of Vanilla extract

Shortbread crust:
250g of flour, 150g of melted butter, 1 egg, 1 spoonful of sour cream, a pinch of salt, 2 spoonful of sugar.

Mix all these ingredient to form a dough. Roll down the dough in between 2 sheets of baking paper. Place in the fridge for 30mn.

1. Prepare the chocolate cream. Melt the chocolate in a bain-Marie saucepan(the saucepan with the chocolate will be placed into a bigger pot with boiling water).In the meantime, peel the pears, cut them in half and remove the middle seeds.

2. Boil for 5 Mn the pears to tenderise them. Strain them and keep aside. Place the shortbread crust into an oven tart dish.Remove the upper baking paper, pick the crust with a fork and cook in the oven for 15/20mn until it golden. Look if the crust lift during cooking and simply open the oven and pick it with a pointy knive to let the air go. Do not over cook the crust, take it out of the oven when it starts to have a golden colour. Let it cool down.

3. Pour the whipping cream over the melted chocolate. Turn off the fire after 5 mn. Add the egg and 2/3 drops of vanilla extract and mix again. Pour this filling into the shortbread crust. Cut bottom of the pears so they look like a hand-fan. Delicately place the pears on the chocolate filling and push them down so they open as a hand-fan.

4. Put the Tart again in the oven for 20mn at 150 degrees. Remove from the oven and let it cool down. Before serving, sprinkle a little bit of icing sugar.


Walnut Cake with Chantilly and Berries

In France, walnut recipes exist since the Middle Age.There are 3 different varieties of walnuts (Franquette, Mayette and Parisienne). Walnuts are rich in mineral salts, good fatty acids and vitamin B and D.



Serve 6 to 8 persons


Ingredients:
400g of walnuts
8 eggs
250g of sugar
100g of flour


For the Chantilly: 200ml of whipping cream, 50g of sugar
Berries: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, mulberries or else


Grind the walnuts and mix with 50g of sugar. Crack the egg separating the white and the yolk. Mix the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar(200g) until the yellow colour turns lighter. Whip the egg whites adding a dash of salt to help them getting firm quicker.
Mix the walnuts with the flour and add the egg yolks preparation. Incorporate delicately this to the firm egg whites.
Place a baking paper over a large tart oven dish. Pour the preparation into it and bake in the oven for about 30mn at 210 degrees.
Whip the whipping cream with the sugar (50g) until it gets firm but do not whip it too much as it will turn into butter.
Prepare the dessert plates: cut small portions of the walnut cake and place a spoonful of Chantilly on top of the cake portion. Sprinkle berries on top of the Chantilly.



Dark Chocolate Mousse 
This very simple dessert is known by everyone and this one is from a very well known French chef called George Blanc. You need to prepare the Chocolate mousse the day before. I prefer to serve the mousse into individual ramekins  when I invite friends but you can also serve it in a big bowl on the family table. It is important to use very fresh eggs for this recipe as the eggs are not cooked .


Serve 6 persons

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
6 egg white
250g of bitter dark chocolate(between 50% to 70% cacao)
100g of butter
40 g of sugar
1 pinch of salt

Separate the  eggs putting the whites into a large bowl and the yolks into a smaller bowl.
Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie casserole(this is important as chocolate should never be melt on a direct heat). Add the butter to the chocolate and mix to a thick mixture. Remove from heat and incorporate the egg yolks until you obtain an even consistency.
Whip the egg whites until they are firm. To do this, add a pinch of salt to them and whip in a slow speed so more air will incorporate into them, giving them a nice flexible texture.
Add little by little the sugar while whipping the whites.
Pour the chocolate over the egg whites and gently fold with a wooden spoon until you get a fluffy mixture.
Pour into individual ramekins and refrigerate overnight.