Galentine’s Day

Chocolate Raspberry Tart with Lemon Curd

So this post is coming a little late, but I wanted to share a little trial and error baking in the making.  My younger sister Courtney moved to Kansas City last year and brought her ability to throw amazing Galentine’s parties with her.  Galentine’s day, if you weren’t aware, officially got its name from Leslie Knope and the great Parks and Rec.  My sister had the dinner, decorations, drinks, crafts, and conversation covered, but she asked if I’d make the dessert.  A fun fact about me, if you invite me to a party and want me to bake something, I’ll happily oblige.  Exceptions to the rule are elaborately decorated cakes to specifications that is only judged after it is finished, I’m not a business owner any more, I’m done with that stress.

So back to the big decision about what to bake.  For those of you aware of the Parks and Rec Galentine’s original theme you’d think I should make some sort of waffle dessert.  Maybe next year.  For now I have six mini tart pans that had never been used burning a hole in my cabinet to make their big debut.  So it was decided after various internet searches:

Lemon Curd with Raspberry Chocolate Buttercream in a Chocolate Crust

Ok, so that is a big mouthful, a lot of moving parts and maybe it was a little over the top, but you go for it on Galentine’s Day.

First I started with the Chocolate Tart crust, I chose a recipe from Pretty. Simple. Sweet.  I don’t currently own a food processor or even a pastry cutter for some crazy reason, so the only difficult part of this recipe was getting the dough to form.  I used a sturdy fork and my hands and it did eventually form, but it would have been much easier with a food processor.

Definitely take her hint of using powder sugar instead of granulated sugar.  I wanted to completely bake these crusts before baking, so I used the blind baking technique.  This is very important, your dough will completely shrink up if you don’t fill the crusts with aluminum foil and dried beans for the first twenty minutes.  I like pinto beans, they don’t leave any smell after being in the oven, and they are the cheapest dried beans at Aldi’s, but pie weights would also work.

While the crusts were baking I started the Lemon Curd, also from Pretty. Simple. Sweet.  A very straight-forward recipe, the only tip I would give is don’t fret if your lemon curd seems like it will never thicken-up at minute 9, keep going, it thickens up all the sudden.  This happens for pretty much everything I make in a double boiler, I always freak out a minute too soon.  It might come from forearm fatigue.

I made both of these recipes the weekend before, and stored the crusts in an air tight container and the lemon curd in the fridge.

Now it’s the day of Galentine’s and I made the Chocolate Raspberry buttercream and chocolate hearts to place on top of each tart.  I was able to take all three components to the party and put them together last minute.

For the Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream I used my Chocolate Buttercream Recipe and added Raspberry preserves to taste, about 2 tablespoons.

Chocolate Buttercream

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4-1/2 cup warm milk

Place 2 cups powdered sugar and cocoa powder in the mixing bowl, cream together with butter.  Add vanilla and about 2 T of the milk, blend together, add the rest of the powdered sugar and 2 more T of milk.  Blend until smooth.  If it is too dry, add more milk, if it is too wet add more powdered sugar, about a tablespoon or two at a time.  The end result should be able to stand up on its own, but creamy enough to spread.

I like to soften my butter in a mug, in the paper, in the microwave. If you keep it in the paper it doesn’t typically melt at 30 seconds.

Time to cream.

This consistency looks perfect for piping or spreading.

Last came the chocolate hearts to top off the creation.  I used chocolate almond bark, wax paper, and a spoon.  After melting the chocolate in the microwave, I used the spoon to drizzle hearts onto wax paper.  After they were dry, I could pick them up, and remove any of the excess drizzle.  They took about 5 minutes to completely dry.

At the party I layered the chocolate tart crust with the Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream, topped with Lemon Curd, and a Chocolate Heart.

The party was awesome, the pizza delicious, and the gal’s were great!  I even created this sweet Valentine’s Day card for my husband.  (Including a drawing of my cat).