Chocolate-Caramel Tart/Drunken Berries/Vanilla Creme Fraiche

"Fleur de sel and edible gold dust are very sophisticated touches! Bon Appetit Magazine, June 2006, edition. This was one of the desserts, my girlfriend had made for her soiree to welcome fall. It was gorgeous! We all loved it - it was awesome!"
 
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Ready In:
55mins
Ingredients:
18
Serves:
8-10
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ingredients

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directions

  • CRUST:

  • Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 375°F.
  • Butter 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom.
  • Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor.
  • Add 1/2 cup butter; process until mixture resembles coarse meal.
  • Add egg yolks; process until moist clumps form.
  • Add cocoa nibs; blend in using on/off turns.
  • Press dough onto bottom and up sides of prepared pan.
  • Bake until crust is golden brown, about 20 minutes.
  • Cool in pan on rack while preparing caramel filling.
  • FOR CARAMEL FILLING:

  • Combine sugar and 1/4 cup water in heavy medium saucepan.
  • Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves.
  • Increase heat to high and boil without stirring until mixture is deep amber, occasionally brushing down sides of pan with wet pastry brush and swirling pan, about 7 minutes.
  • Remove from heat; add cream (mixture will bubble vigorously).
  • Add butter and stir over low heat until caramel is completely smooth.
  • Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; stir in salt.
  • Cool 10 minutes.
  • Pour warm caramel into crust.
  • Let stand at room temperature until completely cool, about 45 minutes.
  • FOR GANACHE:

  • Bring cream to simmer in small saucepan.
  • Remove from heat; add chocolate.
  • Whisk until smooth.
  • Let stand until slightly cooled but still pourable, about 10 minutes.
  • Pour ganache evenly over caramel filling.
  • Refrigerate tart uncovered until chocolate is firm, about 2 hours.(Can be made 2 days ahead.).
  • Cover and refrigerate.
  • DRUNKEN RASPBERRIES:

  • Combine raspberries & liqueur in a small bowl; soak at room temperature at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours, prepare ahead.(Can be made 1 day ahead.).
  • Cover; chill.
  • VANILLA CREME FRAICHE:

  • Spoon creme fraiche into small bowl; scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and stir to blend. (Can be made 1 day ahead.).
  • Cover and refrigerate.
  • ASSEMBLY:

  • Brush top of tart with gold dust, if desired. (It really does make the tart look beautiful - it's like putting a bow on the wrapped present.).
  • Cut tart into thin slices.
  • Arrange 1 slice on each plate.
  • Spoon berries and creme fraiche alongside.
  • *Cocoa Nibs are shelled roasted cocoa beans; available at many specialty foods stores.

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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

<p>Hello all, thank you for visiting My Page but forgive me for&nbsp;it is a work in progress! :) As I am sure you have noticed I changed my Chef Name to Manami which means love &amp; beauty. ;) Just thought I should get with the program - my geisha &amp; my icon! :) Don't fret, I won't change it again! <br /><br />I am 70 years young and I live in a nursing home, which is out of this world, I am treated like a princess and the world is my oyster! I have a private room and during the season I do taxes for most of the staff, as well as my personal clients that have been following me since I left the business world about 25 years ago. I was rear-ended by a van and it turned my whole world upside down. Why dwell on that? <br /><br />I am an American Jew (from NYC) who moved to Havana, Cuba when I was 2 1/2 years old, lived there until a few days after Castro took over and vamoosed it out of that country as fast as my legs would carry me! I&nbsp;was on a forced hiatus from the UofM, due to illness. <br /><br />From there my sister, mother and I went to NYC to work and my father went to Haiti in Port-Au-Prince, where he and my uncle had purchased some tiny cocoa plantations &amp; a chocolate factory - for the choccolate liquer - to make baking chocolate (the real bitter stuff). We joined my father about 2 months later where I spent 2 of the most carefree &amp; wonderful years of my life! It is the stuff that movies are made of! (A la Grace Kelly - even my clothes were like hers)&gt;&nbsp;</p> <p>I then continued my studies in upstate NY and hated it because it was too, too cold!:( Went back to NYC to work and see what I wanted to do with my life - I was all of 20 years old and had to drop out of school because of illness and then because of the weather! Yuck - so I got a job in a Textile Buying Office as a receptionist and soon I found myself buying trimmings! Loved it and was very happy with the work I was doing. <br /><br />However, I got an offer from two young guys who had a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, where they made Maternity Clothes and they wanted me to be in charge of the shipping dept, keep inventory and in my spare time - help with the designing!! I couldn't pass it up - the offer sounded so great and the salary was twice what I was making in the NYC. So I went to Cleveland, got married, had both my children and got a divorce 15 years later. <br /><br />Then my children and I moved to South Florida and have been here since 1978, I can't count that far back :) <br /><br />Learned how to do taxes with H&amp;R Block and worked simultaneously&nbsp;as a Supervisor in 2 offices&nbsp;for them for 15 years. Then after the accident everything went spiralling downwards until I could no longer walk alone even with a walker - so the next step was a wheelchair. Stayed at home with a lot of help (nurses, PT therapists) fixed the bathroom so I could bathe myself and fixed the kitchen so I could help warm-up meals (was taught how to cook in rehab) and so forth and so on. <br /><br />However, the fire department had other plans for me, I called them too often to pick me up off the floor - how embarassing! So they gave me a choice - either a home or they would have to call HRS! :( (very sad) <br /><br />It was there, in my home where I was robbed! <img title=Cry src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-cry.gif border=0 alt=Cry />&nbsp;All my cookbooks (all my Julia Childs Cookbooks, my Settlement Cookbook which had been my mothers - published in 1939 - with all her notes) my mother's cookbooks from Cuba &amp; Haiti, all my handwritten recipes. They also took all my Delft collection, some antiques that I had in the kitchen like my rolling pin, a beautiful old &amp; used wooden bowl, a charcoal-iron that was brought north when my parents left Haiti, it was hand-painted &amp; was gorgeous, as well as all the other things that are too numerous to mention! <br /><br />That proved to be the last straw &amp; from there it was an ALF,<img title=Yell src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-yell.gif border=0 alt=Yell /> which was horrible, and then on to another home where the administrator of that home became the administrator here and voila, here I am. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /></p> <p>I have a beautiful large private room with a private&nbsp;bath, furnished to my liking: eclectic!&nbsp;<img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> My room is large enough to house my office and all the other odds and ends with which I like to surround myself.<br /><br />During tax season, mostly, my room is always full (of course I love it that way)! I have a blanket&nbsp;my daughter bought for me in New Mexico and that is on my bed. You guessed it - that is where everbody sits or on my great grandfather's arm chair which is in great shape. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile />&nbsp;Update 01/11/2008 that time is here again :) Have started doing taxes already and not just regular taxes but corporations, partnerships and 1040X - ammended returns! Whoopee! I love the feeling I get when this time comes around and I get into gear!!! I love it! :) <br /><br />The head chef, the kitchen supervisor &amp; the dietician enjoy the recipes from Zaar; the ones that I post, as well as, the others. We are in the process of changing the menu right now - so we have been doing a lot of figuring. The administrator is so cute because every once in a while she asks for a recipe and then she gives me a pack of paper so I can print them. <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /><br /><br />I am president of the resident council and most of the family members come to me to take care of their grievances - this way I do my part - and the staff can take care of the larger problems! It has been working for 10 years - why change if it ain't broke?<img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /></p> <p>Well, it's time to say hasta luego folks. <img title=Laughing src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-laughing.gif border=0 alt=Laughing /><br /><br /></p>
 
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