I have been baking almost non-stop during this quarantine. As my Instagram will attest, I have been making loaves of bread and cream puffs and fruit tarts and cookies and even some cupcakes. The other day, there were no sweets in the house and my sister was genuinely confused. However, I haven’t gotten to make a large, fancy dessert in a while because we are only four people who, under the circumstances, rarely have guests and cannot, or rather, should not, consume that much sugar all by themselves. I finally got to make something new and challenging for my sister’s 25th birthday. When I asked her what she wanted, she thought about it, and decided that she wanted me to (somewhat) recreate a tart she used to eat at Café Tomaselli, a famous cafe in Salzburg, Austria that she frequented when she lived there for two years.
The original tart was individually sized, and, as far as she can remember, had a dome of chocolate ganache in the middle surrounded by whipped cream and covered in halved strawberries. To make it full sized for her birthday, we decided that a ganache core that large would be too rich, so I used chocolate mousse instead.
The original dessert from Café Tomaselli that this was based on
I was initially quite intimidated by this dessert since I was making both a chocolate mousse core and stabilized whipped cream to go on top, and therefore I would have to use gelatin. I have a rocky relationship with gelatin. I rarely use it and only have about a 65 percent success rate with it, which are not the best odds. However, I decided to bravely forge ahead (and make the chocolate mousse the day before so that I could be certain it would set completely), and luckily everything held its shape.
You can see here why a ganache core the size of this chocolate mousse core would have been far too large
The other tricky part of this recipe was the tart shell, for which I used a German recipe that called for me to knead the tart dough by hand, which I had never done before. I wanted the tart to be as authentic as possible, so I decided to use the recipe, even though it seemed far too sticky, and I was sure it would not work. I never should have doubted the German woman who wrote this recipe, because it worked beautifully, and in the end this dessert turned out to be possibly the best thing I have ever made.
Look at the layers!
Recipe:
Ingredients:
For the Chocolate Mousse:
I used this NY Times recipe, but increased the chocolate significantly
6 ounces chocolate, I used 72%
¾ cup milk
¼ cup sugar
1 envelope plain gelatin ( 1/4 ounce)
1 ½ cups heavy cream
Method:
Place chocolate in a metal bowl and place it over a saucepan of boiling water. Make sure the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Stir the chocolate until completely melted, and then take it off the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature, but still liquid.
Place milk in a medium-sized microwavable bowl. Stir in sugar. Sprinkle gelatin on top of milk. Let stand for 1 minute.
Microwave, uncovered, at full power 2 minutes. Whisk. Microwave again for 1 minute 30 seconds. In the meantime, fill a large bowl with ice water
Remove from microwave. Pour mixture into bowl for an electric mixer. Place stand mixer bowl inside of ice water bowl. Whisk gently but constantly until mixture thickens, this could take 5-10 mins, be patient! Remove from ice water.
Whip the thickened milk mixture with an electric mixer on high speed until very thick and fluffy, stopping twice to scrape sides of bowl. With mixer running, gradually pour in cream. Continue to whip on high speed, stopping to scrape sides of bowl, until mixture will hold a soft peak.
With mixer on low speed, pour in chocolate, making sure chocolate falls into the cream mixture, rather than hitting the side of the bowl. Mix just until incorporated. You can finished mixing gently by hand with a large spatula.
Choose you bowl or mould for your mousse, and line it with saran wrap. Pour the mousse into the container, and cover with more saran wrap, making sure it is flush against the top of the mousse.
Refrigerate overnight.
For the Tart Shell
I based my recipe on this recipe from Germany Insider Facts
Ingredients:
50g (1/4 cup) sugar
100g (1/2 cup) cold butter
150g (1 1/4 cup) pastry flour (Type 405)
1 egg
1 pinch salt
Method:
Sift the flour on a large board or clean table, make a hollow in the middle
Add the sugar and the egg into the hollow.
Cut the cold butter into pieces and place the pieces on the flour around the hollow.
Mix the egg and sugar with your fingertips, then quickly rub butter into the flour and blend all ingredients together. Don’t knead too long. It’s a bit like making pasta dough.
Form a ball with the dough, wrap in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.
Roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper.
Place the dough in the tart shell, and use any pieces that are hanging over the sides to fill in any holes or thinner areas. It will seem very sticky, but it will be fine once it freezes and bakes.
Dust the bottom of the tart shell very lightly with flour.
Place in the freezer for 30 mins.
Prick the bottom of the tart shell and bake at 400°F for about 10 to 15 minutes.
For the Stabilized Whipped Cream:
I based by recipe on this recipe from Sugar Geek Show
Ingredients:
12 oz (340 g) heavy whipping cream, cold
1-2 tablespoons of agave nectar (or you can use powdered sugar)
1 tsp gelatin I use KNOX brand
1 1/2 Tbsp cold water
1 tsp vanilla
1 teaspoon heavy cream
Method:
Sprinkle your gelatin over the water and let bloom for 5 minutes.
Melt gelatin for 5 seconds in the microwave. If not fully melted do another 3 seconds. You can tell gelatin is melted when there are no granules of unmelted gelatin visible.
After dissolving your gelatin, add in 1 tsp of heavy cream and mix. If your gelatin is too cold, heat again until it’s melted (5 seconds).
In a cold mixing bowl, whip your heavy for 15 seconds on medium speed until its foamy
Add in your agave or sugar and vanilla and continue mixing on medium speed until you reach very soft peaks, barely holding their shape.
Turn your mixer down to low and drizzle in your gelatin. Continue mixing on medium speed until your peaks are firm and holding their shape but don’t over-mix to the point when your whipped cream starts to look chunky or begins turning into butter.
For decoration:
Ingredients:
1 pint of strawberries
3/4 cup of pistachios
Method:
Toast the pistachios until lightly browned. Let cool, then chop them into small pieces, but not to the point that they become dust.
Slice the strawberries into fairly thin slices.
Assembly:
Once the tart shell has completely cooled, turn the chocolate mousse out onto the center of the tart shell.
Gently cover the mousse with the whipped cream to create a domed shape.
Let rest in the fridge for about an hour.
Place the sliced strawberries neatly atop the whipped cream, and sprinkle the pistachios all over.
Keep refrigerated until time to serve.
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