Malted chocolate and caramel tart

[Dan Lepard]

Malted chocolate and caramel tart

Dulce de leche, the sugar junkie's methadone, is whipped with cream cheese and swirled through a fudgy malted chocolate filling. You can also make little tarts, like chocolate Bakewells, tucking a spoonful of caramel under the mixture in place of jam.

300g plain flour
275g caster sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
175g unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
125g dark chocolate
50ml sunflower oil
100g malted milk powder, like Horlicks
3 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp (30g) cocoa
50g fromage frais or cream cheese
75g dulce de leche

Place 250g flour, 75g caster sugar, baking powder in a bowl. Rub 125g butter in then add a yolk (save the white) and knead with 2 -3 tbsp water to make a rollable dough. Chill for 30 minutes, roll thinly, and line a rectangular 12cm x 34cm tart case or similar. Heat the oven to 160C (fan assisted). Line the case with paper and beans and bake for 25 minutes, the remove the paper and cook until pale golden brown. In a saucepan melt the remaining 50g butter, chocolate and oil. Beat in the remaining 200g sugar, malted milk powder, vanilla, milk and eggs. Mix and sift the remaining 50g flour and cocoa and fold though the chocolate mixture. Spoon into the baked tart shell, beat the cream cheese, dulce de leche and the saved egg white evenly then swirl this through the filling. Heat the oven to 180C and bake for 30-40 minutes, until risen and firm to the touch.

[Ellery22]

I tried this last night - it was AWESOME! One of the best chocolate recipes I've ever made.

I made it using a pre=bought pastry case - I know, I know, but I'm terrible at making pastry. If anyone else tries that, you either need a bigger pastry case than 20cm across, or to make slightly less filling.

Also, did you know you can get chocolate Horlicks? There's an experiment to try...

One question: does anyone know any cake recipes using dulce du leche? I now have most of a jar of it left that needs using...

[Sue-L]

Just bumping this to the front page, where I can find it again at the weekend.

I bought a jar of malted milk to add just 3 tablespoons to a cake recipe, and had been wondering what to do with the rest of it.

[Sue-L]

Wow! This is a first class dessert. The best chocolate dessert I've made in ages - fantastic fudgy texture.

I had difficulty working out the best way to swirl the caramel mixture through the chocolate - I think I should have been more forceful, but the thinner caramel didn't look as if it would be easy to mix with the chocolate, without making a mess of it.

I will have to think of a better way to do it, as I didn't get to use all the caramel - I stopped when it looked as if the surface would become covered in a thin layer of the caramel mix.

It didn't spoil the tart though!

[Sue-L]

I've just recommended this recipe to someone on the BBC food boards and they've asked if it's supposed to be eaten hot or cold.

I served it at room temperature, and it didn't occur to me that it might be a hot dessert, but re-reading the recipe, I'm not so sure now what your intention was, Dan.

[DavidW]

Hi Sue_L,

Dan tells me that the intention was for this to be served at room temperature, and that's how we ate it when the recipe was being developed. But he says that you should be able to serve it warm - probably not piping hot from the oven, but I can imagine this warm, maybe with a simple home-made ice cream.

David W.

[Sue-L]

Thanks for clearing that up - I think the questioner wanted a dessert that could be made ahead of time, but wasn't sure just from reading the recipe, if this was intended to be served straight away.