Week 2: Tarte Aux Pommes & Tarte Au Ganache Chocolat

I believe that's French by the way. :)

Week 2 was very very fun. We made tarts! I've never made a tart before! We made the doughs, which were individually different, from scratch, and then made the fillings.

The filling for the Apple Compote Tart (Tarte Aux Pommes) had a sweet taste with spices. It was a mixture of hard apples, sugar, a vanilla bean, lemon and spices. It made a nice, paste like consistency. Similar to apple pie actually! The pie dough was sweet- it's called Pate Sucree.

Here it is:

Then there was the Chocolate Ganache Tart (Tarte Au Ganache Chocolat). I have found my love. That's right, I fell in love with this dessert! I am ruined for anything less!! lol. :)

It was incredible----

We made a very simple and non-sweet dough called Pate Brisee which is has a very similar taste to a premade crust you would buy in the store. Obviously, store bought has no comparison to something homemade, but I just wanted to use that as an example of taste. The filling was made from Timoline (we used corn syrup), butter (lots), bittersweet chocolate, and heavy cream! We toasted some coffee beans and let them steep for 30 minutes in the heavy cream atop the stove to infuse some coffee flavor. The cream was then strained, removing the beans and put directly over the butter, sweetener, and chocolate. The heat of the cream melted it all-- The coffee flavor added SO much to the chocolate! It wasn't just chocolate anymore! It was fabulous.

Cover it with some homemade whip cream and you've got a cracker jack of a dessert.