Valentine's tart (banana caramel chocolate)

Yeap! That's how I call this hyperdelicious dessert which in fact is a tart. I was thinking that if you want to make the difference and at the same time use beloved ingredients like chocolate and caramel, all you have to do is just follow the below instructions. It's not a difficult recipe. It needs a little time but by starting partially its preparation the day before it's sure that you gain a lot of time.

Preparation: 1h

Baking 20'

Waiting 1 night

Ingredients

For the tart (sablee)

90 gr softened butter (a little more for the pan)

35 gr powder sugar

1 gr flower salt (ideal if you could mix it as well with vanilla grains)

60 gr all purposes flour

20 gr of pure cocoa powder

For the biscuit (Marigny)

70 gr egg whites

15 gr of pure cocoa powder

15 gr of maizena

15 gr of all purposes flour

70 gr of caster sugar

65 gr of egg yolks

30 gr of butter

For the Caramel mousse

10 tsps of dulce de leche (or more)

250 gr mascarpone cheese

150 gr liquid fresh cream whipped

(optional 1 gr of gelatine powder)

For the Chocolate cremeux

110 gr of liquid cream

50 gr milk

30 gr of egg yolks

25 gr of caster sugar

110 gr of dark chocolate 70%

For the decoration

3-4 bananas

Caramel sauce

Milk chocolate melted and tempered

Prepare all parts of the recipe apart from the decoration the previous day. This process will enable you have everything ready only to set up and decorate your dessert.

Prepare the tart

Preheat the oven to 170C degrees. Mix the butter with the sugar and the salt. Then sift the flour and the cocoa and add them in the mixture. Butter a baking pan of approximately 18 cms diameter. chose a low pan of 2 cm height. But if you don't have one, just use a normal pan with the diameter dimension given.

Place a parchment paper at the bottom of the pan and then place the pastry mixture on it. Flatten the mixture into the pan in order to be well and correctly baked within the whole surface.

Bake in the over for 8 minutes.

Then prepare the biscuit.

Increase the heat in the oven to 180C degrees.

Make sure that all of your ingredients are in room temperature.

Sift the cocoa powder, the maizena and the flour.

Beat the egg whites with the sugar in medium speed. Then low speed and add the egg yolks. Mix for a few seconds then continue mixing the ingredients with a spatula. Add the sifted mixture into the eggs and at the end add the butter melted. Place the mixture in a piping bag. Then add the mixture on top of the tart pastry that you have it baked but not removed from the pan. Bake the whole base for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let it cool.

Once the tart base is in room temperature fold it with plastic in order to remain fresh until the next day.

Prepare the chocolate cremeux

Cut the chocolate in little pieces and put it in a bowl.

Heat the milk and the fresh liquid cream in a pan. At the same time beat the egg yolks with the sugar until they are lightly whitened. Pour the milk mixture onto the eggs and mix very well.

Inverse the whole mixture well incorporated in the pan and heat it to medium temperature. Continue mixing. Once the temperature of the mixture shows 85C degrees take it off the heat and pour it to the bowl with the chocolate. Mix well until they are very well incorporated and constitute a cream. Let it cool. Cover with plastic and put it in the fridge for one night.

Prepare the caramel mousse

Soften the mascarpone with a fork, in order to easily mix it with the rest of the ingredients.

Add little by little the spoons of caramel to the mascarpone and mix well with a spatula. In case you prefer the caramel mousse a little sweeter, don't hesitate to add a few more spoons. But don't exaggerate. This tart doesn't need to be oversweetened, but balanced.

Finally add the whipped cream and gently mix with a spatula.

Cover it with plastic again and place it on the fridge until the next day.

(You could as well mix 1 gr of gelatine in a two spoons of fresh liquid cream, heat it for a few seconds in microwave in order to be dissolved and then add it to the mixture of mascarpone and caramel, before adding the whipped cream. For a more stable result)

The next day

Use a parchment paper to spread the melted and tempered milk chocolate. Trace with a knife little designs in the chocolate. It is easy to try to make geometrical designs.

Put the chocolate cremeux in a piping bag.

Place the tart base in a plate that you like . Cut the bananas in thin pieces and make a layer with them on top of the tart. Add then on top the caramel mousse. Freeze the tart for 15 minutes.

Add on top the chocolate cremeux, a few banana pieces and pour a few spoons of caramel.

Decorate with the milk chocolate designs that you have prepared.

The recipe and the pictures are prepared and executed by L'atelier sucré d' Eleni

The tart base is based on a recipe by Christophe Michalak.

Tart base

Biscuit

Cremeux chocolat

Caramel mousse

Decoration