When Chocolate meets Orange in Paris made in Bahrain.

I wanted to make a pie. But I read online that making tarts will be more satisfying. Well, maybe because it was much more simpler and less fuss to do. So I made a tart. I wanted to use my oranges that has been on the table for quite some time. I don't want to waste it, so I made Orange Tart. I know oranges and chocolate goes really well, like a beautiful relationship swimming in our tongue. Sounds dirty. :P

Plus, my husband is not the "any-kinda-dessert" person, but do sometime enjoy having to eat anything with chocolate in it. Dark chocolate to be precise. Chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, hot chocolate and, urm, and.. hmmm.. I think that's it. But not chocolate bar. Like Cadbury or Galaxy or Godiva.

So I went online and did my research and found a great french tart base and a delicious orange & chocolate filling. Or maybe I should call it orange filling. No. Orange curd. Yes, the right word for it is orange curd. I just checked back the website I found the recipe.

Here's the recipe.

French Tart Base by David Lebovitz.

90g (3 ounces) unsalted butter (cut into pieces)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp water (I use room temperature)

1 tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

150g flour

1. Preheat oven 210'C. Heat butter, oil, water, sugar & salt for 15 mins in the oven till butter is bubbling & sugar starts to brown at the edge of the oven proof bowl.
2. Pour hot butter mixture (be careful as butter mixture may explode) to flour. Quickly stir flour & butter mixture till forms into a ball. 
3. Transfer to pie/tart pan and wait to cool. Once cool spread dough evenly.
4. Baked for 15 mins or until golden brown. 

Simple and quick. Which I like. And it taste good. But really. Be very careful when taking out the heated butter from the oven. I almost jumped when it errupted and you can hear the "blop blop" sound. No kidding.

For the chocolate layer base I used (another simple and quick recipe) :-

Chocolate Ganache by Pastry & Sports.

100g dark chocolate (original uses 50gs only)

100g cream (original uses 50gs only)

1. Heat cream (not to boiling).
2. Pour warm cream on finely chopped dark chocolate.
3. Stir till smooth.
4. Pour on cooled tart base. Refrigerate till set for about 30 mins.

Last, the orange curd. 

Orange Curd by Pastry & Sports.

2 whole eggs (room temperature)

10ml orange juice (100g) (I used freshly squeezed juice of 1 orange)

50g sugar

75 butter

Zest of 1 orange (I reuse the one that I squeezed)

1. In a small sauce pan, add sugar, zest, orange juice & eggs over gentle heat. Stir till thickens. But do not boil it. Cause it will end up like making scramble eggs. (LOL!)
2. Out from the heat, add butter and whipped till incorporated. 
3. Leave to cool. Then pour it on the cooled tart base with chocolate ganache layer.
4. Let it set for 2 hours or more in the fridge. Not the freezer. 

I had a problem with the curd. Maybe because my eggs were not room temperature as I took it from the fridge straight to the sauce pan. Or maybe I should have whisk the eggs and sugar together before I pour everything (like instructed from the Pastry & Sport blog) in one go. But then again, the taste is just delicious. Because nothing goes wrong when chocolate meets orange base in Paris... :)

Enjoy & good luck.