Chocolate Pecan Tart (isn't just for the holidays)
Author & Photographer: Claire Schultz
A little over a year ago, my family and I spent Thanksgiving with friends in Paris. It was a beautiful, dream-like feast, recreating American dishes with French ingredients--fresh pumpkin for the pie, stuffing made with silken French butter and bread from the local boulangerie, vegetables purchased in my heavily-accented French from the street market around the corner. Food both familiar and foreign, an ephemeral meal born of chance and determination.
One of my father’s friends, an American expat raised in the south, vastly preferred pecan pie to pumpkin, and so, in the same spirit of improvisation, I set out to make him one. With leftover crust from the pumpkin pie, a tart pan (not a pie dish), not quite enough sugar and pecans to fill it, and little to no experience making or eating pecan pie, I cobbled together a pecan-chocolate tart from the ingredients in the kitchen and a few recipes scattered around the internet. Although I still don’t particularly like pecan pie, even I had to admit that the result was a resounding success. It was not nearly as sticky and cloying as most pies I had tried, tempered by maple syrup and good dark chocolate. The tart shell became shallow and flaky and well-proportioned, falling somewhere between French patisserie and American home baking.
After we had left, our friends requested the recipe, and I typed it up in all its rough, improvisational glory. It has languished in the notes app of my phone for more than a year now, waiting for a chance at revival. Although Thanksgiving has once more come and gone, the holidays--even just the deep chill of winter--seemed as good an opportunity as any to bring it back. This time around, I subbed vanilla extract and pre-grated spices for vanilla bean and whole cloves of nutmeg, accepted that the butter and eggs I used would never live up to the ones I once had in Paris, and settled for Trader Joe’s baking chocolate bars instead of fancy chocolate baking discs.
This pecan-chocolate tart has become a recipe twice-translated: I once had to convert a quintessentially American dessert into French cuisine, and so I have needed to adapt it to suit an American kitchen once again, although it still bears the marks of every step in the process.
Yields: 1 tart
Prep time: 60-90 min.
Cook time: 35-45 min.
Ingredients:
Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Pinch nutmeg (optional)
½ cup (1 stick) butter
3 tbsp ice water
Filling
¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup combined maple syrup & dark brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of salt
4 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup dark baking chocolate, roughly chopped
Approx. 1 ½ cups raw pecan halves
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and nutmeg.
Slowly work in the butter until the dough is roughly the texture of cornmeal, with some medium-large lumps.
Add the ice water, 1 tbsp at a time, until you can work the dough into a smooth ball. If it’s too dry, add more water; if it’s too wet, add more flour.
Pat the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap and chill for about 30 minutes (or 10 in the freezer).
Roll out the dough and press it into the tart pan. Prick the crust all over with a fork, and bake for 12-15 minutes, until just starting to brown. Allow the crust to cool briefly before filling.
Meanwhile, to make the filling, cream together the butter, sugar, syrup, nutmeg, and salt with a mixer until well combined. It may look like it’s split, but that’s fine--it’ll still taste good!
Beat in the eggs and vanilla, one at a time.
Layer the chocolate evenly in crust and top with pecans. Pour the butter/egg mixture over the top, distributing all over the pecans and chocolate.
Bake the tart on top of a baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, until the filling is set and browned.
Filling adapted from: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014289-chocolate-pecan-bars
Crust adapted from: http://www.howtocookeverything.com/recipes/flaky-piecrust