Chocolate Chip Cookie Tart
You first taste the crisp, peanuty tart crust. Then the chewy chocolate chip cookie. Then the melt in your mouth chocolate ganache. This is all just in your first bite. Your next bite may be different. Maybe in your second taste you get the magic peanut butter chocolate combination from the little balls of peanut butter pressed into the cookie dough just before baking. This is a decadent treat. You may be wondering what pastry magician came up with this concept. It’s the genius concoction of Maja Vase, a self-proclaimed “chocolate nerd” and recipe developer from Denmark, who published this recipe in her self-titled (and beautiful) iOS or Android app available in both Danish and English. And it’s only $5. Much less than a fancy cookbook.
The recipe calls for a 15.5 centimeter in diameter tart ring, hence the “XL” part of the name. I used the recipe (mostly) as written and made 6 small tarts as a gift to my husband for Valentine’s Day this year which is why they are decorated with hearts. I suppose technically it was for my husband and his co-workers since inevitably they are the beneficiaries of my baking. Apparently this was one of the “best things” that I’ve made according to one of them. Everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie in the end.
There are a few elements to this obviously, tart crust, cookie, ganache, decorating. But none of them are hard, and each element comes together pretty quickly. You have to give the tart dough time to chill, and the cookie and ganache time to cool, but you can do other things during that time, right?
Look at that cookie dough inside….yummmmmm!
Chocolate Chip Cookie Tart Recipe
Get her app here: http://majavase.dk/app-link/
About the ingredients:
For the peanut flour called for in the tart crust, I ground the peanuts in my cleaned coffee grinder, It worked perfectly.
The recipe calls for caster sugar in the cookie. If you aren’t familiar, it’s cane sugar that is not as fine as powdered sugar but finer than the granulated sugar we use in the U.S.. You can make your own by briefly processing granulated sugar in the food processor, but this recipe worked just fine for me substituting granulated sugar.
For both the cookie and the ganache I used semisweet chocolate. This is more a matter of personal taste. I don’t necessarily recommend it, it’s just what I used.
If you’d like to make mini versions of the tarts like I did, here are a few tips.
You’ll need tart pans or rings around 3 inches in diameter. I used the equipment listed below to achieve this look, but you can use any 3 inch tart pan, fluted or straight.
Very small piping tip (I love this kit. It has solved my piping tip needs for all but 2 bakes I’ve ever done.)
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Cut the tart dough in half before you chill it, and roll out one half of the dough to line 3 tart rings leaving the other half in the refrigerator while you work on the first batch. It’s much easier to work with the dough when it’s firm. I also baked them in 2 batches so my dough would all be at the same temperature and cook evenly.
I’m using the tart ring to cut out the bottom of the tart. Once the shape is cut, I’ll place the tart ring on a parchment lined baking sheet then press the cut out bottom gently into it so it’s nice and flat.
I’ve cut out strips of dough for the sides of the tart ring separately so I have those pretty and clean tart edges.
Unless you have the perforated tart rings and perforated baking sheet like the ones I list above, you’ll need to blind bake the tart dough before you fill it with cookie dough. Blind baking is pre-baking the tart before you put in any fillings. It helps you avoid an underdone crust. You’ll dock the dough (poke holes in the bottom with a fork) and add pie weights when you first bake it, or it will shrink and the bottom will puff up just like you would any tart or pie.
Here I’m slicing off the top of the dough so it’s even with the top of the tart ring. I’ve also docked the bottom of my tart to show what it would look like.
You could also use traditional mini tart pans (with the pretty fluted edge) with a removable bottom for this recipe. The same rules about docking and weighing down the dough applies.
I put my dough-lined tart rings back in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before baking them because the dough got pretty soft while I was working, and I wanted those neat, crisp edges that you see in the picture.
The initial bake of your tart should be pale golden in color when you take it out of the oven. Slightly underdone but not raw dough. It’s going back in the oven with the cookie dough inside.
When adding your cookie dough to the baked tarts, only fill up the tart half-way with the dough, it rises and you want to leave room for the ganache. Check your baked cookie tart after 15 minutes, remember, the initial recipe calls for a much larger tart. If you have leftover cookie dough make some chocolate chip cookies to snack on. I did! Just rolled them into balls and put them in the oven for 20 minutes. Delicious.
And finally a word about drawing with chocolate...
I had MUCH better luck putting my chocolate in a small piping bag fitted with a piping tip with a tiny hole than trying to poke a hole through a plastic bag. Piping with chocolate is messy but kind of fun. Practice on wax paper before you start drawing on the tart.
Awww, look at those cute hearts. I had to practice a bit to get them to come out looking so cute.
