Chocolate Brownie Tart

Every so often I come across recipes that make me feel ‘I have to bake this now!’ This is instantly what I felt when I saw this Chocolate Brownie Pie on Peabody’s Culinary Concoctions blog.

I was actually in need of a chocolate dessert, as at the time, my brother was still home from Uni for the holidays and wanted a nice dessert. He is quite possibly the biggest chocoholic I know. If it doesn’t involve copious amounts of chocolate he doesn’t consider eating it. I can’t actually think of a non chocolate dessert he will eat! So when I spied this dessert I knew it would be a winner.

I wanted to be able to eat the dessert too but didn’t have the time to make some gluten free pastry. The actual brownie filling contains very little flour, so I simply switched the plain flour for some gluten free flour and then made a slightly smaller standard pastry case than the recipe called for, but the full quantity of chocolate filling. I then poured the extra chocolate filling into ramekins and baked them for less time. The result were little gluten free chewy chocolaty brownie pots – yum!

The brownie part was dense, very fudgy and extremely chocolaty. It had the characteristic wafer thin sugary crust and chewy chocolaty centre. The chocolate chips stayed soft and creamy adding a nice contrast and extra chocolate hit when you bit into one. It’s very rich so small slices are more than enough but it certainly pleased the chocoholic!

Chocolate Brownie Tart
(Recipe adapted from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody blog)

Ingredients
350g sweet shortcrust pastry
1 x 400g tin sweetened condensed milk
60g butter
50g cocoa powder
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp gluten free teff flour (or use plain flour)
75g chocolate chips – any kind

Method
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Roll out the pastry and use it to line an 8-9inch/20-23cm tart tin.
Fill the lined tart with a sheet of greaseproof paper and some baking beans or rice. Blind bake the tart for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.
Then remove from the oven, take out the baking beans and leave to one side. Reduce the oven to 180C.
Pour the condensed milk, butter and cocoa powder into a pan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted and all the ingredients are combined.
Remove from the heat and beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla.
Scatter over the flour and fold in gently. Add the chocolate chips and stir briefly to incorporate. Do not stir too much as they will start to melt if the chocolate mix is still warm.
Pour the chocolate mix into the tart tin and bake in the oven for 35 minutes. The tart will puff up in the oven but will settle down into a flat smooth finish on cooling.
Allow to cool in the tart for at least an hour before releasing from the tin.
Serve warm or at room temperature with cream or ice cream.
Makes one 8-9inch tart

Alternatively, you can pour the mix into 10 ramekins and bake crustless brownie pots. They will only need 18 minutes in the oven at 180C. If you use the gluten free flour in the chocolate mix, the resulting brownie pots will be gluten free!