Mocha Mont Blanc Tart

If you follow along and read my little musings before actually heading down to the recipe,

then you know that I have a love affair with chestnuts.  In all forms.  There is something so enthralling about their tender meatiness when roasted (the aroma alone is captivating), and when we turn it into a puree and add a bit of sugar and vanilla, oh my!  I can eat it by the spoonful!

I love roasted chestnuts in savoury settings, like soups or even with mushrooms in pasta dishes.  Chestnuts bring such an earthy meatiness if looking for a vegetarian substitute in cooking.

Chestnut flour is gluten free, and is amazing in breads (see my Chestnut Paleo bread) or in crepes and waffles etc.  These days you can find all sorts of cakes and muffins using chestnut flour.  Like other nut based flours, there is a lovely underlying sweetness to the flour, without it taking over.

You can also pick up ready made Creme de Marron.  This is a beautifully creamy concoction of creamed chestnut purée already sweetened with sugar and vanilla.  It has a slightly looser texture than the purée we’ll be using today.  You can pick it up in jars or cans in the ethnic jam and condiments section of good grocery stores.  I always have Creme de Marron in the cupboard for when I fancy one of my favourite cakes ever: Chestnut Cream Cake with Chocolate Bitters

But taking roasted chestnuts (either freshly roasted, or from the convenient packages we can pick up in good grocery stores these days) and turning them into a thick purée is one of my favourite ways to use them.  My Roasted Chestnut Ice Cream is a fabulous case for always keeping a package of roasted peeled chestnuts in your pantry!  This is also the base for soups etc.

Mont Blanc is a French dessert that features a wonderful chestnut purée that has been sweetened, along with meringue and whipping cream.  Does it get any better than this?  And while it does sound rich, it isn’t at all heavy.  They are usually individual little mountains made from meringue piped into a cone shape and baked. Then whipped cream and the chestnut purée get piped around the cone, in thin vermicelli like noodle shapes.  I know it sounds a little strange, but in the end, they look like little mountains, hence the name.  And the flavour is out of this world.

So, I decided to take the premise of this tasty but fussy little dessert and simplify it a bit for us regular folks.  Instead of making individual desserts, I decided that one larger tart is the way to go.  My tart shell would be nut based as well, so this is a gluten free dessert, yay!   It’s basically just walnuts or almonds ground down with softened butter and muscovado or brown sugar.  This gets pressed into your tart shell with a removable bottom and baked till just set.  And that’s it for the baking portion of this dessert.

While it is baking and cooling, a quick chocolate ganache is made.  Simply heated cream and chopped chocolate hang out till all melted and smoothed with a spoon.  The ganache gets poured into the cooled tart shell.  This gets popped into the fridge to set.  You want to make sure that the layer of chocolate is cooled all the way through before adding the next layer on top of it.

Now it’s time for the chestnut layer.  You will need to either pick up a couple of cans of ready made chestnut purée (here’s one that I often use) which you will then soften with a touch of milk and add some sugar to, to create the sweetened filling for the tart.  Or you can make it from scratch.  I will show you how below.

Now, I don’t have all sorts of piping tips and bags (I just don’t use them that often) so to achieve that iconic thinly piped chestnut purée of the classic dessert, I had to improvise.  All hail the potato ricer!  I decided to give it a go, and low and behold, it worked perfectly.  The sweetened purée came out in a lovely jumble of distinct ‘noodles’ as I directed the ricer over the set chocolate.  For the final layer, a good amount of stabilized lightly sweetened whipping cream was mounded on top to pay homage to the ‘Mont’ part of the original dessert.  I garnished it with chocolate curls and candied chestnuts or marrons glacé.  

When I cut into the tart, I was thrilled with how light it ended up being.  The crust was the perfect contrast to the creamy textures it held.  The flavours all stood on their own, but they all play really well together.  And the one flavour that married them all together: coffee!  Yep, some finely ground coffee was added to all the layers except the whipped cream.  Oh my!

And while we’re at it, here’s a little something to wash down these sublime slices of the perfect dessert: a classic White Russian.  Because coffee.  I decided that since I was making coffee anyway, make a bit extra and let it cool.  Or use ready made cold brew if you have it handy.  And my little addition…leftover egg nog!

How to make a Noggy White Russian: Add ice to rock glasses.  Mix together 2 parts cold coffee, 1 part Kahlua, 1 part vodka, 1 part egg nog (replacing the cream that would usually go into a White Russian)  Blend and pour over ice.

This is a treat to make winter go a little bit quicker.  And trust me, you will love how easily this comes together.  And once you’ve tried this recipe, you’ll have the perfect nut crust for all your other pies and tarts.  And the perfect ganache for your next black bottom pie.  And well, learning how to make stabilized whipped cream is something every baker should know.  But most of all, chestnut purée!

Love Jen