Chocolate, Mascarpone and Coffee Tart

I needed a dessert to take to a family lunch, so decided on a tart. This is one of my stand by recipes, so I know it tastes good; everyone likes chocolate!

It's  lovely mixture of chocolate, mascarpone with a hint of coffee, all in a pastry case. Doesn't need much cooking - just the pastry case.

You need:

a pack of shortcrust pastry [or of course make your own]
200g dark chocolate
250g mascarpone
1 dspn instant Espresso coffee
3 egg whites
pinch salt
80g caster sugar
chocolate shavings to decorate [opt]

Preheat oven 180C/gas4                     Grease a 21cm tart tin

Roll pastry out to fit the tin, prick with a fork and bake blind for 10 mins.

Break chocolate up and put into a pan; sprinkle a little water over and melt on a low heat.

Once it's melted, take off the heat and add half the mascarpone and 1 dspn of instant Espresso coffee powder and mix well.

Take the pastry out of the oven, cool then add the chocolate mixture. Put in fridge for an hour.

Whisk the egg whites to peaks with the salt then add the rest of the mascarpone and the sugar. Mix together.

Take the tart out of the fridge, put onto a plate then spoon over the cream mixture. Sprinkle over some chocolate shavings if you want.


 As you can see, I decided to pipe a little of the cream mixture on the top before adding the shavings. Think my new piping bag and nozzles have gone to my head, but it was for a family occasion!
You get a good thick layer of chocolate with a good hint of coffee, which contrasts nicely with the pastry texture, then the soft creamy topping and the crunchy bits of chocolate shavings. If you don't want such a deep chocolate layer, you could use a larger tart tin.

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