Baked Sunday Mornings: Malted Crisp Tart

Has it really been two weeks since I posted here? Blimey. It’s been pretty busy around these parts, what with SXSW and the home stretch of my dissertation. But things are slowly getting back to normal, which is nice.

This week’s Baked Sunday Mornings project is the Malted Crisp Tart. This is another one of the recipes from the book that I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise, but the project “forced” me to confront. I’m not usually one to go too far out of my comfort zone with cooking; I have to be feeling pretty darn adventurous to try new techniques, and I am lazy and don’t like to make things with a bunch of steps. So this recipe wasn’t really up my alley, but I rolled up my sleeves and did it anyway. Took me two days, but I did it!

I made this in a springform pan because I still don’t have a proper tart pan. The one I borrowed is ceramic and I wasn’t comfortable using it because the recipe calls for you to chill the crust in the freezer for 20 minutes before transferring it directly to the oven. I didn’t want to risk cracking Laura’s pan, so I used the springform instead.

This was my first time making a diplomat cream (pastry cream with whipped cream folded in), and I’m not sure what the consistency was supposed to be. It was light and fluffy, maybe not terribly flavorful, but not unpleasant. Every layer of this tart — crust, chocolate malt, and diplomat cream — contained malted milk powder, but it didn’t have a strong malt taste. I’m not sure what I was expecting; maybe a giant Whopper (a favorite candy of mine, which I don’t often indulge in)? It basically tasted like a thick layer of chocolate with a nice crust on the bottom and an airy cream on top.

The recipe called for milk chocolate for this middle layer but 1.) I don’t really care for milk chocolate and 2.) 8 ounces of high quality milk chocolate was going to set me back about $6-8 and I wasn’t willing to spend that kind of money. So I got some semi-sweet chocolate chips from the bulk section of the Whole Foods Mothership and called it good. This chocolate ganache layer has crushed Whoppers and caramelized Rice Krispies pressed into it, which is where the “crisp” part of the name comes from. It’s also very thick and WOAH CHOCOLATE. It reminds me of Toll House Pie, actually, especially with the semi-sweet chips.

I was just finishing up shooting the pictures of the tart when my sister and her husband came to pick up my nephew, who is a few months older than the Big Kid and who had been staying with us this weekend. I offered them each a slice (who can say no?). My sister LOVED it (and gladly accepted a piece to take home), my brother-in-law described it as “sweet” and said that he doesn’t like chocolate, and my husband was kind of “meh” on it. I liked it alright; enough that to keep it in the house for any length of time will seriously undermine my Weight Watching, but I don’t know that I’d make this again. I’m really more of a brownie/cookie kind of gal; you get just as much YUM with a lot fewer steps!

Posted by boxingoctopus on March 27, 2011

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