We at Season’s Eatings followed Eric Lanlard’s recipe for a raspberry and chocolate tart for a bake sale, and learnt two important lessons: the recipe for a perfect chocolate pastry and how to save a chocolate ganache when it splits.

So instead of our usual type of post, with a recipe for a dish or a product review, in this post we share how to make (and more importantly save from splitting) a chocolate ganache and how to make the perfect chocolate pastry. If you want to the combine them with fruits or anything else in a tart, then all the better!

Chocolate pastry recipe

Chocolate pastry is known to be more difficult to make as it often comes out too dry, but this Eric’s recipe has ratios to make the perfect pastry, so here it is.

Ingredients

• 175g plain flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 50g icing sugar
• 150g unsalted butter – chilled, cut into cubes
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Recipe

1. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and icing sugar into a mixing bowl.
2. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your finger tips until it resembles coarse sand, exactly like you would do when making crumble mixture.
3. Add three egg yolks and the vanilla extract and combine to a smooth ball of dough with a wooden spoon.
4. Wrap the pastry dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
5. When you’re ready to roll out your pastry, put it between two layers of cling film and roll to ½cm thick.
6. The pastry will need blind baking in its pie dish – 15 minutes with baking beans and then a further 5 minutes without.

Chocolate ganache recipe

Ingredients

• 200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 200ml single cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 75g unsalted butter
• 50ml milk

Recipe

1. Melt the chocolate in a large bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile gently heat the cream in another saucepan until steaming hot but not quite boiling.
3. Very carefully and slowly pour the melted chocolate into the cream, stirring at all times.
4. Add the vanilla and butter and stir again until the butter is combined.
5. What you’re expecting is a smooth, silky chocolate ganache; however if yours splits no amount of whisking will fix this. The trick is to very slowly whisk in hot milk, and after a few small dribbles of hot milk your ganache will magically become smooth again. The reason your ganache split in the first place is to do with the a slightly incorrect ratio of fat to chocolate. The addition of the milk (which contains water), brings balance back to the ratio – et voila, beautiful, smooth and glossy ganache!