Gosh, I’ve been sitting on two recipes all week, but then life and stuff go in the way and here we are at almost Friday and I haven’t told you about them. Let’s kick off with a dessert, chocolate tahini tart.
Yesterday was a rough day- we found out our sweet husky girl has terminal cancer. She’s 12, so wouldn’t survive treatment. We were all pretty wrecked and even though she’s not technically my dog, she’s collectively our dog. Chocolate was definitely necessary.
So I’ll start with this. This is inspired by one that I recently had out and about in Detroit at Olin and I was pretty determined to make it again at home. I knew as soon as I saw it on the menu that it would be mine! To create it, I adapted the essence of my chocolate peanut butter tart with a few tweaks. I omitted the layers and blended together the ganache base and tahini for a creamy, dreamy, smooth chocolatey-salty layer.. I also kept the pretzel crust (because I do love a pretzel crust) but if you love a graham cracker crust even more, I say go that way. You do you.
One distinction between my tart and Olin’s is in the depth – mine was half as thick, which worked because honestly I brought half of my Olin tart home because it was SO rich. Don’t get me wrong, this is RICH, but it’s more manageable in its thin-layer form. Because of that, when pressing the crust into your tart pan, only go up the sides about halfway. It know it’ll be weird but you don’t want the crust to be too high on the sides.
This all comes together quite quickly. As with Olin, I served mine with a drizzle of homemade salted caramel and of course, fresh whipped cream. A bit heavy for summer perhaps, but comforting when the bad news bears arrive.
Before serving, I’d suggest leaving this out of the fridge for a good hour. Let the chocolate get a little soft and silky at room temp. It’ll be hard to sit there and stare at it for a bit, but I promise it’ll be worth the wait.
Chocolate Tahini Tart
June 24, 2021
: 8
: 20 min
: 15 min
: 1 hr
Chocolate tahini tart with a pretzel crust is the perfect combo of salty and sweet, with a crunchy pretzel crust base and a smooth and silky tahini-ganache filling.
Ingredients
- 4 cups salted mini pretzels
- 1/4 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1 cm cubes
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 4 TB cold water, give or take
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup tahini
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- whipped cream, to serve
- salted caramel, to serve
Directions
- Step 1 In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the pretzels until it forms a coarse meal (its okay if some chunks are left). Measure the pulverized pretzels- you should have 2 cups. Add the cold butter, vanilla, sugar and egg yolk to the processor. Pulse until just combined. Add water, 1 TB at a time until the mixture sticks together. Chill the mixture in the fridge 20 minutes.
- Step 2 Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease your tart pan.
- Step 3 Press the pretzel mixture evenly in the pan, making sure to get all the edges, nooks and crannies, but only halfway up the sides. Reserve any remaining crust for another use. Bake until dry and barely golden, 12-14 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely.
- Step 4 While the crust is cooling, add the chocolate to a heatproof glass bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the cream until just barely a simmer. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let sit 1 minute. Whisk until silky smooth. Add the tahini and vanilla and blend completely. Pour into the cooled crust. Chill at least 20 minutes until set (can be done overnight). Serve with sweetened whipped cream and salted caramel, as you wish.
