Orange Is the New Black: Orange & Dark Chocolate Tart

Omg! The Squirrel is in an ecstatic state of body&mind. So much pleasure that she can hardly type anymore. Yet the reason for such intense ecstasy has to be shared! Here it comes… A bit more elaborate maybe than the salads and other easy-going inventions posted before. But oh-so-definitely worth trying!!! It pays off for every single measure of effort & time invested! And in fact it’s less complicated than it may seem on a first sight.

What you need to have… 150 g. cookies (digestive biscuits), 30 g. butter, 30 g. roasted almonds, 6 eggs, 6 oranges, 1 lemon, few drops rhum, 150 g. creme fraiche, 200 g. sugar (preferably brown) + 150 g. more for the orange-caramel, 200 g. dark chocolate

What you need to do… preheat oven at 180. Blend cookies, butter, almonds, and 1 egg. Leave aside blender knife and use own hands to work dough (you’ll feel even more connected to the delicious thing you’re creating ). Put baking paper in a 25-cm round pan (preferably with detachable sides), and distribute dough evenly on the whole surface and approx. 2 cm up on the sides. Bake for some 20 min. Lower fire to 150 – 160. In the meantime, melt chocolate (bain marie, microwave, what you wish). Spread melted chocolate over crust. Ok, you’re half way through.

Now the orange cream… Beat 5 eggs with sugar and rhum. Add grated peel & juice of 4 oranges, lemon juice, creme fraiche. Pour the mix on top of chocolate. Bake for some 45-50 more minutes (til  cream looks stiff). Meanwhile… do the orange caramel. Grate peel of 2 oranges; peel them over a bowl, making sure that no bit of the juice is wasted. Chop. Burn sugar in a pan, with a little bit of water. After it boils, lower fire and wait til it caramelizes (might take a while, don’t lose patience!). Throw the orange peel, juice, and pieces in the pan. Don’t freak out, weird things are gonna happen (e.g. sugar will harden, sputtering noise). It’s only normal. Stir (don’t expect ingredients to nicely melt into each other; also, expect some resistance from hardened sugar). Remove from fire. You should be left with some dark syrup, with stuff in it (sugar bits, orange pieces). Brake sugar pieces into smaller ones. Add bits of caramelized orange, sugar, and syrup on top of cake.

That’s it! Take a deep breadth and enjoy! Have people over, spread  & share the orange/ black ecstasy.

 

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