TWD: Chocolate Coconut Cream Tart

I think . . . I'm not sure but I think that this week's TWD pick, Chocolate Cream Tart, might be the last stop on the Chocolate Madness 2009 tour. Not to worry, I'm sure that future dates will be added but I have a feeling that next Tuesday I might be posting a dessert that isn't chocolate. Or maybe I will. That's the fun of it all, right? Well, if you follow TWD then you know that we've definitely been on the chocolate party train this month. And this week's pick, Chocolate Cream Tart, is no exception. I've loved all of the chocolate desserts this month and I was very excited to try this one because it's a recipe that I've paused on several times. There's just something magical about the chocolate tart thing.

So, why change it up? Why add coconut to all of that chocolate goodness? Well, after many, many years of outright dislike, I've made friends with coconut. In fact, we're more than friends, we're BFF. I hated coconut for so long: I didn't like the smell of coconut, the taste, and BLECH to the texture. It's like chewing on dental floss or paper or something. I mean, it was always really, really tragic to me as a child that bunny cake had coconut all over it. I strenuously lobbied for a coconut free bunny cake and every year I was shot down. But first I started to like the way that Hawaiian Tropic smells (it's no Coppertone though), and then the taste of coconut wasn't so bad, and then the next thing you know, it's a full-on love affair. I don't know about you, but I go through phases of food obsessions and right now I'm in the coconut phase.

I'd made the chocolate tart crust over the winter holidays for a berry tart and it didn't knock my socks off. I think that's because I paired it with vanilla pastry cream and berries and there were just too many competing sweet flavors against the chocolate crust. I think that the chocolate crust needs the chocolate pastry cream. Now, for playing around, Dorie suggests that you use the "Good For Anything Pie Dough" rather than the chocolate tart dough. Blind bake the tart shells and, if any of you happen to be in the market for tart pans, this is my advice: do not buy nonstick tart pans. The first tart pans I ever purchased were nonstick and, for the life of me, I could not figure out why my tart shells would shrink down to practically nothing. The people at the Sur la Table where I bought them were so nice and chatty and one day I mentioned my tart shell issues. One of the ladies who worked there was a pastry chef and she asked if they were nonstick. Why, yes, they are nonstick. That's the problem, the buttery tart dough just doesn't want to stick at all to that nice, nonstick surface. And she's right. Because I've since bought regular tart pans and my shrinkage issues are not nearly what they are with the nonstick tart pans.

The only other thing that the addition of the coconut requires is to boil sweetened, shredded coconut with heavy cream until it's reduced and thicker. I boiled mine, and boiled mine and it did get thicker but it was really thin until I chilled it. So, should you decide to play around at some point, don't stress out about the thickening aspect. I was sure that I was going to have the insides of my tart running out all over the place but they do firm up nicely when chilled.

The verdict? These tarts are really, really rich but I loved them. The chocolate cream overwhelmed the flavor of the coconut cream but that may be because I made tartlettes rather than a regular sized tart. In fact, I'm nearly positive that was the case. The toasted coconut and the whipped cream just put these over the top for me. I loved them. Thanks to Kim of Scrumptious Photography for such a great pick and check out her blog for the recipe.