Chocolate Ganache Tart with Fresh Strawberries

In one of the few episodes of Masterchef I actually watched, there was this Chocolate Ganache Tart with some passionfruit cream thingy. The judges that were tasting it were saying they had to 'stop scoring at 10'. The website for Masterchef doesn't actually list the recipe (and there are many people in the forums asking for it). So I put my googling skills to good use, and tried to track down a similar recipe.

I didn't manage to find an exact match that called for both chocolate ganache and passionfruit, but two other chocolate tart recipes caught my interest.

I liked the idea of using Arnott's Choc Ripple biscuits as the tart base. (That meant I didn't have to produce a pastry base). And making the chocolate ganache with a 1 part cream to 1 part chocolate sounded about right (ie. not overwhelmingly rich). In the end, I wasn't too fussed about the passionfruit cream topping, so I opted for some fresh strawberries instead, since I had a punnet already sitting in my fridge.

Chocolate Ganache Tart with Fresh Strawberries
With reference to this on taste.com.au and this recipe from formerchef

-- 10" tart tin with removable base

• 1 Punnet Strawberries (rinsed, steam-end cut flat, sliced in half)

Tart Base:

• 15 Crushed Arnott's 'Choc Ripple' biscuits
• 60g butter (melted)

Mix and press into tart bases. Then place into the fridge until its needed to be used.

Ganache Filling:

• 200 ml Thickened Cream
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 200 g Cocoa Dark Chocolate (broken into small pieces - I used Lindt 70% dark chocolate)

Place chocolate pieces in a large mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, heat cream and sugar to just before it starts to boil. Pour the hot cream, through a sieve, over chocolate pieces. Stir until smooth and creamy in texture. Mix in vanilla. This way the chocolate doesn't need to be 'heated' directly. Therefore avoiding the chance of having 'burnt chocolate'.

Keep on whisking the chocolate mixture until all the lumps are gone. Put the bowl over some hot water (ie. like a double boiler) if the chocolate hasn't melted properly.

Pour the chocolate mixture into center of cooled tart shell. Spread the chocolate mixture evenly to the end of the tart crust. Arrange the sliced strawberries around the tart. Place the tart into the fridge to set for at least 1 hour before serving.

We had this with vanilla ice cream, and it did help to offset the bitterness in the 70% dark chocolate I used.

Considering this was my first Ganache Tart.. it actually turned out pretty well. I think I will still hunt around for the Masterchef version. Stay tuned... :)