Strawberry Forest chocolate tart

This Strawberry Forest chocolate tart is deeply chocolatey, almost slightly bittersweet, with a delicious chocolate crème pâtissière filling. If you prefer vanilla cream, simply leave out the chocolate in the final recipe. The tart works beautifully with strawberries, as well as sour cherries, sweet cherries or raspberries. If you decide to make a larger quantity of the cream (for example, for a larger tart tin), any leftover can always be used for desserts (see the last photo), éclairs, Swiss rolls or cream horns. Highly recommended!

Ingredients for the shortcrust pastry:

• 160 g plain flour
• 30 g cocoa powder
• 100 g cold butter, cut into cubes
• 1 egg
• 60 g icing sugar
• a pinch of salt

Sift the flour and cocoa powder. Add the butter and quickly rub in or chop with a knife until the mixture resembles streusel. Add the egg, icing sugar and salt and quickly knead into a dough (you can also use a food processor). Shape the dough into a ball, flatten slightly, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 60 minutes.

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out to approximately 3 mm thick. Use it to line a 12 x 36 cm tart tin with a removable base, previously greased with butter and dusted with plain flour. Trim and smooth the edges, then prick the base all over with a fork. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with ceramic baking beads to weigh it down (you can also use dried beans or rice). Blind bake at 190°C for 10 minutes. Remove the baking paper and baking beads, then bake for a further 20 minutes or until the pastry is baked through. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Ingredients for the chocolate crème pâtissière:

• 300 ml milk
• 3 egg yolks, from large eggs
• 75 g sugar
• 20 g plain flour
• 20 g potato starch
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 90 g dark chocolate

Additionally:

• approximately 700 g fresh strawberries, hulled, washed and dried
• mint leaves, for decoration

Bring the milk to the boil in a large saucepan. Once boiling, remove from the heat.

Beat the sugar and egg yolks until pale (for example, using a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment). Add the plain flour and potato starch and mix until you have a smooth paste. Pour the paste into the hot milk and whisk until any lumps have dissolved. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Once boiling, cook for about 1 minute, until the cream has thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Add the broken-up chocolate to the hot cream and stir until completely melted and incorporated.

Pour the still-warm chocolate cream over the cooled tart base and smooth the surface. Arrange the dried strawberries over the warm cream. Decorate with mint leaves.

Enjoy!