Ingredients:
Pâte Sucrée tart crust - egg yolk, unsalted butter, sugar, all-purpose flour, kosher salt
Filling - toasted chopped pecans, whole raw pecans, vanilla bean, unsalted butter, sugar, dark and light corn syrup, kosher salt, eggs, dark chocolate
Whipped Cream - Bulleit Bourbon, crème fraîche, heavy cream
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Happy Thanksgiving! As usual, Bon Appétit Magazine never fails me. Inspired by the beautiful photograph of this tart in the November issue, I thought I'd take a stab at this recipe for dessert this year - it turned out just as delicious as it looks. Not a recipe for the faint of heart, as it took a few hours (not including chilling time), but worth the effort. It was the perfect finish to a great Thanksgiving meal and upstaged my pumpkin pie this year.
This was my first venture into tart territory and was a bit nervous having to work with a different crust entirely from pie crust, and then nerve wrackingly un-molding it from the outer scallop tart mold. I compared a few recipes for the pate sucree, a sweetened, cookier version of a pie crust. This dough is more crumbly, less flaky, and would also be great for thumbprint or sugar cookies. The only difference with this, is the addition of sugar and egg yolks, but some recipes also add milk or cream. I used Alice Waters's recipe for this tart, as she's my go-to guru for all things food; she suggested using ice cold water as the combining agent for the dough. The tricky part is always rolling out the dough (after chilling overnight); I needed to add a bit more water and work the dough for a few minutes with my hands to reactivate the gluten just slightly, so it could be more malleable when rolling out - otherwise it would've just crumbled into a pile of flour on my board.
I then chopped and toasted/roasted some raw pecans in the oven for about 10 minutes, although it could've gone a bit longer. Remember to chop these pieces up fairly small, as they will line the bottom of the tart. A food processor would be great to use at this step - I wish I used one! While these are in the oven, chop up the dark chocolate into really small, irregular pieces. Don't use the food processor for the chocolate, as it will cause the chocolate to form into little round balls, which don't melt as nicely once baked.
While the chopped pecans were cooling, I started working on the (very sugary) filling. The mixer did all the work; you first combine the sugar (I reduced this to 1/2 cup instead of 1 whole cup) and both corn syrups, then the eggs and salt. Using the whisk attachment folded a lot of air into this mixture, allowing it to be silky and creamy and easy to pour.
When assembling the tart the dry ingredients are arranged first, with the chopped pecans at the bottom of the unbaked tart shell (no blind baking for this one), then sprinkling the chopped chocolate for the second layer. The fun part is arranging the whole raw pecans in concentric circles over the top of the chocolate layer, giving way to a decorative and festive presentation. (This is a good step to get your kids involved in!)
After the whole pecans are placed, transfer the tart onto your baking sheet and carefully pour the sugar/corn syrup mixture evenly over all the pecans, until the tart shell is filled. I would work as nearest to your oven as possible at this step, so you won't have to carry a filled tart shell across the kitchen! Carefully transfer into the preheated oven, with the rack in the middle. After about 50 minutes or so, you can check on the tart to see if the filling has set yet. My trick is to just pull out the rack, and if the filling jiggles too much, it's not done yet. It will be firm to touch and the top will be a nice light golden brown.
Serve with some chilled Bourbon Crème Fraîche Whipped Cream, which goes perfectly with the tart (no sugar in the cream, so it balances nicely). This is also great for breakfast the next morning, with some coffee - if there's any left over.
