Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Fresh Mint Truffle Tart



My mint is back...

Last year I filled three enormous bags with the plant, pulling up as many of the stolons from earth as I could find. Yet it comes back... every year.

The plant and I have an tense relationship. It wants world domination, spreading its shoots up all over my yard and beyond. I just want it to give up a few leaves now and then, play nice in the yard and leave the rhododendrons alone.

Being a stubborn, willful plant, it won't comply. So, I have to go out there and show Mr. Mint who is boss now and again.



Like today.

Who is tough now, eh plant!

So, rich with plenty of fresh mint, I decided to make a truffle tart this morning. A crisp chocolate crust filled with a bittersweet ganache infused with my pesky plant.



Not So Humble Fresh Mint Truffle Tart

serves 12-16 (small pieces, it's rich)

crust
1/2 cup (65g) powdered (icing) sugar
1 cup (138g) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (21g) dutch processed cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick, 113g) unsalted butter, cold

filling
1lb 1 ounce (477g) semi-sweet chocolate (56% cacao), chopped
1 1/4 cup (290g) heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
40 fresh mint leaves

garnish (optional)

melted chocolate
mint leaves

Pre-heat your oven to 350°F.

In your food processor, pulse together the dry ingredients for the crust. Cut the cold butter into small pieces and add those to the food processor. Blend the mixture until it forms a fine crumb that holds together when pinched.

Pour the crumbs into an 11" tart pan with a removable bottom and press into the pan to form the crust.



Bake the crust for 15 minutes and then allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

While that cools you can start the tart's filling.



Pick roughly 40 mint leaves and give them a good washing. Unless, you know, you like infusing your ganache with extra 'vitamins' and 'minerals'.

Thoroughly dry the leaves in paper towels and then give them a couple smacks with your rolling pin. No need to muddle or pulverize the leaves, just one or two smacks to make them fragrant.

Bring the heavy cream to a simmer over medium heat. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the mint leaves. Cover and allow to stand for 20-30 minutes so the mint can infuse the cream.



In the meantime go about chopping all that chocolate.

When the cream is ready, strain to remove the mint leaves and add the cream, the butter and the chocolate to a heat-safe bowl and place over a pan of gently simmering water (over, not in). Stir the mixture slowly, until completely smooth. The end result should be a glossy, emulsified ganache, fragrant with real mint.



Pour the ganache into your cooled crust and then place into the refrigerator to set. It should take a few hours to firm up.



While you're waiting on the tart, you can make some chocolate leaves to decorate the tart.

Simply melt a little chocolate and take a small paintbrush (the cheap ones with plastic bristles, usually marketed towards children work the best for this) and paint a thick coating of chocolate onto the underside of the leaf, avoiding the edges.

Place your leaves onto a baking sheet and then pop the baking sheet into the freezer for 5 minutes.

Once the chocolate is firm and no longer glossy, you can gently peel away the mint leaf. Keep the chocolate leaves chilled until ready to use. Once the tart has set, you can arrange the leaves on top to garnish.



You can also garnish the tart with a little fresh mint or a dusting of cocoa powder before serving.

To store, keep the tart covered and chilled for up to 3-4 days. Allow to stand at room temperature for about 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

Cut a slice, a very small slice, and enjoy.

29 comments:

  1. You just made me REALLY want chocolate...

    Great recipe! Thanks for posting!!

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  2. Does everyone in your house weigh 2,000 pounds? If I baked that much, my boys would be sumo wrestlers.

    Sounds wonderful. My mint is scraggly this year--everything else is going gangbusters, but it's barely surviving. I do, however, know where to buy the stuff, if all else fails.

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  3. Yay! I'm even more thrilled about following since this is the first new post I read, and mint and chocolate are two really popular flavors around here! :D And thank you so much for also using grammes in your weight mesurements, that makes it a LOT easier for Dutchies like me :) In short, you're awesome :)

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  4. 2000lbs? Nope. We're all slim... well, for now.

    Of course, we don't eat all this food by ourselves. That would be impossible. This tart, like most other baked goods, will be shared with friends and extended family.

    Brother Humble has already come around to pilfer fresh baked muffins and part of this tart.

    As for the scraggly mint. If only... Mine is nearly three foot tall in the summer and threatens to overtake everything around it. The plant is nearly unmanageable, probably due to the moist NW soil. Whoever originally planted it should have put it into a pot.

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  5. Awesome, I want to make some mint chip ice cream this week NOT with an extract, and wasn't sure how much fresh mint it would take to infuse the custard. Now I do!

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  6. When I decided to grow mint, that was exactly what my mother told me (in a loud voice)-put it in a pot!!! Mint is truly crazy plant, but it looks like you have tamed it into a beautiful tart. Well done. :)

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  7. This sounds amazing! Your photos are really beautiful too!

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  8. Mint will ALWAYS come back! Embrace it. (Or bake it.) Looks delicious!

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  9. That looks amazing! And it looks so pretty too!

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  10. YUM YUM YUM!!!! Seriously looks delicious!

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  11. Are the mint leaves to be strained out? Forgive me if I've misread, I'm in the middle of finals D:

    Looks delicious, I'll be making it this weekend!

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  12. I have the same mint-management strategy as you, except I never got around to tearing it all out this winter. It's already invading my other ground cover (thought I did tear a bunch out for mother's day at the restaurant--"Here, you needed some mint?!?").

    Um, did I miss something, or did you leave the mint leaves in the cream when you made the ganache? Are you supposed to pull them out?

    Love your chocolate & real leaf garnish! Very striking.

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  13. Chocoholiclily,

    Yes! They are strained. Something that should be extra clear in the post. I'll edit it. Thanks.

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  14. Dear Ms. Humble,

    You are my inspiration!

    I've been macaroning myself crazy lately, its so much fun! I have a dinosaur of an oven and strangely, I'm finding that the macarons on the top shelf are perfect (well, almost) and those on the bottom tray (roughly the middle of the oven) are cracked and sad (oh, but still so yummy, though a little drier). I have my oven set to 150 degrees (Celcius). Any hints? I wonder whether it is the oven, or perhaps, it is because the mixture is slightly overworked as I've needed to handle the mixture a bit extra to get it into the piping bag?

    I absolutely love your blog. Love, love love. I check every single day, even the weekend. In my opinion the weekends aren't as good because there are no humble posts.

    I made the lollipops too - yum, easy, and successful! Gorgeous. (Though interestingly, I made pink and blue, both with gels, and the pink colour didn't dissipate through the sugar - it stayed in little "bits", but the blue was great).

    I do, however, blame you for my rather fat tummy at the moment. Much happier though with macarons in my life though, so we need to take the good with the bad.

    With love and gratitude,
    Katie xx

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  15. Haha. You've got me second-guessing my ideas of mint growing!

    Lovely tart, though! I love mint :)

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  16. beautiful, the chocolate mint leaves are a lovely detail.

    I wish my mint would grow like yours, mine just dies.

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  17. Just gorgeous and sounds wonderful too.

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  18. Finally, a recipe that makes me NOT want to weed out all the mint in my garden! The tart is beautiful. I can't wait to make it!

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  19. Hahaha, I just bought a mint plant and was speculating as to whether or not I should put it in a container or plant directly in my garden. And now I know!

    Thanks for the inspirational recipe and handy gardening tip. ;)

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  20. This cake is absolutely fantastic! I love chocolate with
    mint!I love yr blog!

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  21. *CRY* This tart looks AMAZING!! OH MY GOODNESS!! I love the garnish the most, but that photo of the chocolate filling being poured into the shell is just killing me! Wow. Wow.

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  22. This looks ridiculously good!
    I happen to have this extreme liking with fruit tarts, but chocolate, oh my goodness, that is just too much! :)
    I'm definitely going to have to come back to this recipe when I get the chance!

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  23. I am so scared to plant mint anywhere but in a pot because of stories like these. Although, this tart does look pretty damn tasty.

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  24. I've just made this and it's amazing! Thank you. :)

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  25. My partner had started medical school and we were invited to a potluck. I didn't have time to make anything so I bought some assorted desserts from a bakery and brought them. Another guest made a not so subtle hint that we were supposed to be bringing homemade rather than store bought. So a month later when there was another invite for a dessert potluck. I needed a dessert guaranteed to impress and I chose this one. It turned out fantastically. The chocolate leaves made it look even better than it tasted (not really). This tart and a bottle of port were almost all gone by the end of the evening while there were plenty of leftovers of the other offerings.

    Thanks so much for a great blog and welcome back.

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  26. I've had this bookmarked for a LONG time. I was thinking of making these in a mini muffin pan for this T-day. How would you suggest I alter the cook time for the crust?

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  27. I made this for Christmas and it was a hit! I didn't make the crust sides thick enough and it didn't look as tart-like as your masterpiece (lesson learned). Taste was amazing, even with off-season store-bought mint leaves. For all you Canadian readers, the chocolate filling tastes just like the mint-chocolate bars from Laura Secord Chocolate Shop (which = VERY tasty)

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