recipe
Chocolate custard tart
This recipe was left to us by Joël Robuchon, one of the most renowned chefs of the past century. I’ve bought the books, eaten in the restaurants, drunk the Kool-Aid. His approach to cooking and restaurants was anchored very much in traditional French technique. The way he cooked inspired a generation – a cliché, but it’s true. He set a new benchmark after the nouvelle cuisine movement, which I think we can agree was often confused, ill-conceived and, at its worst, irresponsible.
His cooking could be very technical, laborious and layered, but this dish is a simple gem. It is one of my favourite ways to work with chocolate. Its simplicity is its strength. It’s a recipe where it is worth investing in quality chocolate. The flavour is delivered without any adulteration: it is a pure experience that allows you to taste the complexity and expression of the chocolate itself.
The tart shell is also excellent. One reason is that it is cooked until deeply golden, whereas a lot of recipes leave pastry blond. Often people don’t have the confidence to cook it further, but it is worth it for the texture and, more importantly, the flavour. By the time you’ve poured in wet custard and baked it, you will still have a crisp shell.
For the pastry, it’s a 3:2:1 recipe – three parts flour, two parts butter, one part sugar and one egg. It’s impossible to forget and has saved me from ruin a number of times. Make more than you need and put whatever is spare into the freezer; it comes back beautifully.
Once you’ve blind-baked the shell, you will likely find some holes or tears. Use a little spare pastry to plug and repair as you cook. There’s no need to bake it again, just add the custard and go from there. Once baked, the custard will be ever so delicate and barely set. It can be somewhat tricky to manage, but that is the texture you are aiming for. My tip is to remove the tart from the oven while it still has a slight wobble in the middle, about the size of a 50 cent piece. The residual heat will complete the cooking as the tart rests on the bench.
I recommend eating this tart the same day and keeping it at room temperature. Once a tart has been in the fridge, the pastry will never recover to that crisp, golden beauty.
This recipe is from The Saturday Paper archive.
Andrew McConnell is on leave.
Time: 25 minutes, plus hours in the fridge + 50 minutes baking
Serves 8
Tart base
- Tart base
- 200g cold butter
- 300g plain flour
- 100g icing sugar
- 1 egg
- Dice the butter into one-centimetre cubes. In a food processor pulse the flour, butter and sugar together a few times to break the butter down to a coarse crumb.
- In a small bowl, whisk the egg and then add to the blender. Pulse one more time to incorporate.
- Turn out the dough onto the bench and knead gently to bring it together. Roll the dough into a log, wrap in cling film or greaseproof paper and place in the fridge for a few hours.
- Dust the bench lightly with flour and roll out the dough to three-millimetres thick. Line a 28-centimetre by three-centimetre tart form with the dough, pinching it up along the sides. Place it back in the fridge for an hour or so. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
- Remove the tart from from the fridge, cover the top of the dough with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans or rice. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. When it is set and starting to colour, remove the greaseproof paper along with the baking weights.
- Return the pastry to the oven to colour. Cook until the base of the shell is a deep golden colour. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 120ºC.
Chocolate custard filling
- 300g Valrhona chocolate 70 per cent
- 300ml pouring cream
- 120ml milk
- 2 eggs
- Chop the chocolate and place it in a mixing bowl.
- Bring the cream and milk to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Allow to sit for one minute and then whisk until melted.
- Whisk in the eggs and strain into a pouring jug.
- Place the tart shell on a rack in the oven and pour the custard into the shell, filling it right up to the edge.
- Cook the tart for 10-12 minutes until the custard is barely set. Remove from the oven and leave to cool to room temperature before serving with some whipped cream.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 19, 2025 as "Chocolate custard tart".
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