dark chocolate, evoo & coffee tart with rye pastry
plus a rye pastry taste test. September 2023
this recipe was heavily inspired by an instagram post I saw many months ago that’s been percolating in my brain ever since
I’d never baked with rye flour before but was able to hunt it down and began testing different percentages to see what effect the rye had on the pastry
I started by taking my favourite galette dough (here) and made four half-sized batches of 25% rye, 50% rye, 75% rye, and 100% rye
I baked them off as little shortbreads, and made my partner do a taste test with me (with a tiny pot of ganache to sweeten the deal)
at 25%, the rye flavour is barely noticeable unless you know it’s there and the dough is puffy and flakey
at 50%, the dough had a weird claggy, crumbly texture (definitely baker’s error!)
the 75% and 100% doughs were almost indistinguishable and had a lovely nutty aroma and were satisfyingly snappy
my personal favourite was the 100% dough (partially because who wants to measure out 2 flours for the same result), and this is what I would make the entire tart base with next time!
the tart photographed was made with the scraps of the leftover test batches, so I guess it’s technically a 62.5% rye dough
the ganache filling was inspired by the brilliant Nicola Lamb’s ganache experiments, and she uses a mixture of water and coconut oil in place of the cream (which is just water and fat, if you think about it!)
with the original instagram post still floating around in my head, I went for a coffee and extra virgin olive oil mixture for my tart filling, but there is so much room to play here with other liquids (red wine? raspberry puree? chicken stock?)
ingredients
tart base
85g rye flour (or your use preferred ratio of plain:rye for a total of 85g plain flour)
3g caster sugar
pinch salt
62g butter, cold
30g greek yoghurt
about 20g cold water (if required)
ganache filling
100g dark chocolate (go for about 70%)
30g brown sugar
30g evoo
30g fresh hot coffee
1 tsp vanilla paste
flakey salt, to top
method
tart base
chop the cold butter (62g) into small cubes
in a medium bowl, add the rye flour (85g), caster sugar (3g), and cold butter and rub together with your fingertips until the butter pieces are about pea sized
mix in the greek yoghurt (30g), and cold water as required, to just bring the dough together into one mass
press the dough into a rough circle shape, wrap in baking paper and tuck in the fridge to chill for 1 hour or overnight
preheat the oven to 180°C
lightly oil an 8 inch tart tin
remove the tart dough from the fridge and roll out into a rough circle until about 2mm thick
lay the tart dough into the tart tin, making sure to press into the corners and trim the edges
prick the dough lightly with a fork
bake for about 15 minutes
set aside to cool while you prepare the ganache filling
ganache filling
prepare your fresh coffee, I used a french press
chop the chocolate (100g) into small pieces and begin melting over a double boiler (or use the microwave, 30 seconds at a time and stirring in between)
combine the sugar (30g), evoo (30g), hot coffee (30g) and vanilla (1 tsp) in a small bowl and whisk to dissolve the sugar. it won’t combine and that’s ok
pour the coffee mixture into the melted chocolate and whisk until smooth and glossy
pour into the cooled tart base and use an offset spatula (or spoon) to spread to the edges
sprinkle with flakey salt and leave to cool
serve in small slices with optional creme fraiche or barely-sweetened whipped cream