14th of October - Chocolate tart

We went back to Spain last week. I wanted to celebrate my birthday with my family and it was going to be my last chance to see my sister with the bump before she delivered the baby.

We stayed just a few days and were very busy trying to see everybody. I didn't spend too much time with my sister, although she supposed to be due on the 7th of November, she started to feel Braxton-Hicks contractions so she wasn't feeling too well, but at least we'd get to have dinner all together at my parents' for my birthday!

My father and my sister have to be very careful with their sugar intake, they don't need medication, just to be careful with what they eat so I decided to make this dark chocolate tart, Jamie Oliver's recipe, but with fructose instead of sugar.

At nine o'clock that evening, we got a phone call from my brother-in-law telling us that my sister's waters had broken and he would keep us updated! My first reaction was to get quite upset. I was convinced that she would be twenty hours in labor and I wouldn't get to see either my sister or the baby as we were getting our flight back the afternoon after.

After an hour or so we got another phone call. Things were moving forward so they were taking her to the delivery room. Well, we couldn't do anything else, you never know how long these things are going to be, so we started dinner. After all, my parents live five minutes from the hospital!

Baby Emma arrived at 23:45 that night, the fastest delivery in history and the same day as her auntie Irma! I like to think that she wanted to meet me before I returned to Edinburgh.

She's tiny, super cute and I'm very happy she was born on the same day as me!

Here you have the chocolate tart recipe. I had to freeze half of the base dough, use half of the quantities or make two tarts!

PASTRY
325g unsalted butter
110 g fructose or 225g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
565g plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting
3 large free range or organic eggs
65g cocoa powder
Optional.... zest of 1 orange

FILLING
200ml milk
1/2 tube creme fraiche
30 g fructose or 65gr caster sugar
350g best quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken up
2 large free range eggs

First you will need to grease a loose-bottomed 28cm/11in tart tin with a little of our butter.
To make the pastry, cream together the butter, fructose and salt, then fold in the flour, orange zest (if using), eggs and cocoa powder.

When the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, gently work it together until you have a ball of dough, then lightly flour it. Don't work the pastry too much, otherwise it will become elastic and chewy, not crumbly and short. Wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove it from the fridge, roll out and line your tart tin with it and put it in the freezer for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180degC and bake the pastry case "BLIND" for around 12-15min or until its firm and almost biscuit like. Remove from the oven and turn the oven down to 170degC.

Meanwhile.... to make the choc filling, put the milk, cream and fructose into a saucepan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring gently. Take off the heat and add the broken chocolate, whisking until smooth, then add eggs and whisk again. Pour the filling into a jug. Put the pastry case back in the oven, carefully pull out the shelf and pour in the filling. Push the shelf back in and bake for 15min. It is cooked when the filling still has a slight wobble to it - remember it will keep firming up a little as it cools down.