Earlier this week Shannon forgot to pick Abby up from school, o dear, she felt so bad about forgetting her that i got a delivery the next morning on my desk at the office….

One little slice of this heavenly chocolate tart. Luckily it did not take a lot of convincing to let her make it again for me this morning.

For the Chocolate Fudge Tart you will need:

240g unsalted butter cut into small blocks at room temerature and slightly soft
360g dark chocolate, we’ve used Albany with slivers of almond (don’t use chocolate with big pieces of nuts, if you don’t find the one with almond slivers, then use plain dark chocolate)
290g light brown sugar
4 tbsp water
5 large freerange eggs
pinch of salt
50g finely chopped pecan nuts
cocao powder for dusting
Double thick cream for serving but this is really optional…

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees..
Grease a 20cm springform cake tin, or slightly smaller tin, don’t go bigger…
Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and dissolve the sugar and bring to a rolling boil for about 1 minute or until all the sugar is dissolved, don’t boil too long, it should not go brown.

Place the dark chocolate and butter in a large heatproof mixing bowl, make sure the chocolate is broken into small pieces as the warm sugary water needs to melt the chocolate and the smaller the chocolate and butter, the easier it will melt.

By now the sugar should be reaching a rolling boil, remove from the heat and slowly pour the bubbling sugar and water mixture over the chocolate and butter pieces.

Don’t stir, let it rest for about one or two minutes.

Slowly start to stir the mixture, don’t panic if it looks grainy, it should come together, just let it rest for another couple of minutes and stir again, untill the butter is completely dissolved. It is important for the butter to be at room temperature and soft otherwise it won’t melt into the chocolate.

Seperate the eggs, stir the egg yolks into the chocolate mixture and allow it to cool completely.

Chop the pecan nuts fine, we prefer them fine to prevent them from dropping down to the bottom of the cake, add to the chocolate mixture.

Whisk the egg whites to form firm peaks, add the pinch of salt to the egg whites, slowly fold into the cooled chocolate mixture, don’t over mix.

Pour 2/3rds of the mixture into the greased loose bottom tin, remember ONLY 2/3rds of the mixture as strangely this is a double baked chocolate tart… not too sure why but it works…

Bake in the pre heated oven for 40 minutes, remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool.

At this stage we’ve had some tea on the stoep, overlooking the beautifull Elgin Valley…. and gave Spud the attention he demanded the whole morning while we were busy in the kitchen..

As we walked back into the house, Shannon asked me {DOES THAT CAMERA OF YOURS HAVE A SMELL SENSOR? AS IT WILL FLIP THE ROOF WHEN YOU WALK BACK INTO THE HOUSE! And believe me, the smell of warm baked dark chocolate hits your sense like you cannot believe…

Once the cake is cooled, gently push down the cracked top with anything flat, gently and just slightly, then pour over the remaining uncooked chocolate mixture (the last 1/3rd). Return the cake to the oven and bake a further 30 minutes.

I find this “raw batter” being baked on the “baked tart” quite strange, but magically this really works to give it a fudgy gooey consistency at the end…

Keep to the baking times of the cake , the skewer should not come out completely clean as the cake still needs to be gooey inside.

Leave the cake to cool completely in the tin, at this stage I sadly had to go home, so Shannon packed the warm cake safely into a box for my journey home.

Once home, I’ve let the cake cool completely before I’ve turned it out.

Dust with cocoa and serve as is, or with a dollop of double thick cream…

This tart can be made the day before, just don’t put it in the fridge, I would prefer to make it in the morning before you want to use it, as i think that nothing tastes like “freshly baked” warm chocolate…

Enjoy, i can just imagine that this will work well for a packed picknick as well…