Chewy Nut Tart with Drizzled Chocolate

Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. So Thanksgiving is on its way, and if you're wondering, yes, I am gonna be hosting Thanksgiving here in France. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to be serving because a lot of our favorite American foods are hard to find here, but I'm gonna shoot a little vlog on it so we'll see what we can come up with together. So stay tuned for that. But today, I wanted to share with you this recipe for a delicious chewy, chocolatey nut tart. It's the perfect thing if you were thinking about serving a pecan pie but wanted to try something different. I'd like to tempt you with this one instead. Let me show you how to make it. The first thing we're gonna do is create our flaky pastry crust. Now, this is something you can get done two days ahead. In a large bowl, you wanna add a cup and a quarter of all-purpose flour, a tablespoon of sugar, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt because we're gonna be using unsalted butter. You can first whisk that all together. And then I have eight tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter that I've diced, and you're gonna add that on top. So now we are just going to smoosh the butter with our hands and the flour. So I have yet to replace my food processor here in France. So, you know, the electrical systems are different between the U.S. and Europe, and so I could not bring any of my small appliances. So we are just gonna do it the way grandma did with our hands until you get kind of like a scraggly mixture, and the butter is around the size of small peas. Then you wanna take one egg, and you can put it in a little pitcher like this. And to that, you wanna add one tablespoon of very cold, icy water, and then just whisk it up, and then just pour it into your flour mixture and give it a whisk. Then once it starts to look like this, then you can go in with your floured hands and just start to work that dough together and bring it together until you have a nice little dough ball. Then you wanna take your dough and press it into a disk. I would refrigerate it for at least an hour, maybe two. Again, you can make this a day ahead, two days ahead, and you're good to go. And I'm using a nine-inch removable bottom tart pan. I like these because it just makes it easier to remove the tart once it's done. And we are just gonna roll out our dough onto this floured surface, then just flip your dough over your rolling pin and fit it into your pan. Straighten out the dough so you have a good edge, and then you wanna flip that edge over the side and press it in. This is just gonna give us that double crust that's gonna make our tart a lot more stable. There, then once it's all fitted in, then you can go ahead and fist bump the edges just to tighten them up. Press the dough up a little bit above the edge because we're gonna pop this in the freezer and it's even easier to trim after it's a little bit frozen just to get that perfect knife edge. So for your filling, you're gonna begin with six tablespoons of unsalted butter. And then to that, you wanna add 3 1⁄4 cup of light brown sugar. And then go ahead and whisk that up until the butter and the sugar are combined. Then at this point, we're gonna add three tablespoons of honey. I really like this recipe because it allows you to get that sticky gooeyness without corn syrup. You also wanna add 2 1⁄4 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 2 1⁄4 teaspoons of heavy cream. And then go ahead and just stir that all up until it's combined. Okay, so now for your nuts. You really can use any type of nut you like. I have picked cashews, almonds, and walnuts just because they're three of my favorite. But you could use hazelnuts, you could use pecans, whatever nut you like. Just make sure you're working with three cups. Now, we also want to chop these nuts down a little bit, but I find the easiest way to chop a nut is not with a knife, but it's with a plastic bag and a rolling pin. You could also use a hammer or you could use a meat mallet. I double bag these nuts so that they don't go everywhere. And the first thing you wanna do is start with your almonds just because they are the hardest. Otherwise, if you do it all at the same time, you'll crack these almonds but then pulverize the softer nuts. Okay, you can leave a few of them whole, but it'll just be easier to slice and easier to chew if these almonds are just crushed a little bit. Then after you give the almonds a head start, you can add your cashews and your walnuts. Now that that's done, we can add our nuts to our delicious mixture here. And we just want to stir it up until they are all well-coated. There, then once your nuts are all coated in this lovely sugary goo, then we are going to fill our tart shell. So I've taken this out of the freezer and one thing that you do wanna do is just give it trimming just for that perfect edge before we pop it in the oven. Okay, then you can just add it into your tart shell. You wanna make sure that you get a nice even layer. And the secret is to just press down the nuts and make sure you're getting them to the very edge of the tart shell. That will prevent your tart shell from shrinking too much and collapsing inside the tart. The nuts are gonna actually hold it back at bay. Oh my gosh, this looks and smells so delicious. If you have a nut lover among you, and at our house that's my dad, he's Mr. Nuts. We always joke that he's half squirrel. All right, there. So once you have a nice flat surface like that and all the nuts are kind of pressed in to the sides, we're gonna bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for just about 25 minutes. You're just looking for the edge of the pastry to be set and nice and golden brown. Then when your tart comes out of the oven, you can allow it to cool. And then when it is cool, you could either just dust it with powdered sugar, pop it in the fridge and serve it just like that, or I think it's quite good to drizzle a little bit of semi-sweet chocolate on top. So go ahead and get your favorite brand of semi-sweet chocolate, put it in a double boiler so that it starts to liquefy, and then drizzle it with a wire whisk. And you'll just get these really beautiful chocolatey patterns. And then you can take that whole thing and put it in the fridge overnight. You don't need to cover it. I just think the tart sets up a little bit better if you allow it to refrigerate overnight. It is like the most delicious thing because you've got the flaky pastry, that chewy caramely center, and of course those crunchy nuts. I hope you guys give this one a try and let me know what you think, and I'll see you back here next time. Until then, bye.