I love dark chocolate. Much better than milk chocolate. It just has such an intense chocolate flavor, without dulling it with extra sweetness. That rich flavor of dark chocolate has no equal. It’s so sexy, so seductive.
I spied a dark chocolate ganache tart in the Joy the Baker Cookbook, and I just had to make it. I feel like the intensity of dark chocolate came from some kind of relationship…
“Give it to me harder!” she yelled, as her hair slapped me in the face yet again. Girlfriend Number Six was always so violent with her damn ponytail.
But how was I suppose to give it to her harder? She was on top, like she liked to be. The woman in power, she enjoyed playing that role. I tried thrusting upward even harder, but there was only so much I could do being on the bottom. I was thrusting my penis in and out of her while she sat on top of me; I was the living trampoline underneath a moaning gymnast.
We parted ways after that passionate night, my hips sore from the excessive gyrations I performed even while on the bottom. She had to move away for an internship on the East Coast, leaving me in Los Angeles, alone for the first time in years. Long-distance relationships never work, she told me, as she kissed me one last time at the airport. It was deep and passionate, yet strangely sorrowful, like we were never going to see each other again.
We exchanged letters regularly for the next six months. Her internship was going well, but she wanted to come back west again. Her demanding schedule meant that she couldn’t fly out to see me, nor would she have time to spend with me if I were to fly out to see her. I suspected she wasn’t quite as busy as she said she was, and it was just a way to keep her distance from me. We had broken up, after all. But we still wrote to each other, hanging onto a bond between us that couldn’t be broken.
The day of her return was rapidly approaching. She was arriving that night, and I wanted to be ready for her. I recalled all of our moments together. Before we started dating, we would exchange furtive glances at each other while we worked in the same building. I finally gathered the courage to talk to her, and I couldn’t believe that I had waited that long. Conversation between us flowed like wine from an alcoholic’s decanter. We went on romantic dates in the park, where we would lie on a blanket and look up at the sky, the gentle breeze wafting over us as we snuggled together in bliss. Our candlelit dinners together, where we bared our souls to each other as we looked into each other’s eyes, knowing that we were perfect for each other. The sex we had was amazing. Passionate and intense, hot and intimate, there was nothing like being with someone I loved.
And here I was, six months after we had broken up, not knowing what to do to celebrate her return. I didn’t know how she would feel about seeing me again. Had she found someone else and moved on? Did she want to get back together? Her feelings were a complete mystery to me.
I went into the kitchen, where we prepared many meals together. Such happy moments when we stirred a sauce together, when we chopped some berries together, because food is so sensual, so intimate. I loved the times we had in that kitchen, and walking into the emptiness of it now just reminded me of how warm it used to feel. The comfort I got from being there in the past with Number Six was replaced with the loneliness and desolation I would imagine in an uninhabited tundra; the vibrancy that once existed now just a distant memory, frozen beneath an impenetrable layer.
I had to make something incredible for her. Something infused with the zeal and ardor that once defined our relationship. I scanned over the shelves, hunting for that magic ingredient that would do justice to what we once had. My eyes were immediately drawn to the block of dark chocolate I had purchased last week. The rich, velvety chocolate had that right level of intensity I needed in what I was making.
I spied the tart pan on my counter and whipped up a tart crust with some flour, sugar, butter, and a pinch of salt. I pressed it into the tart pan and put it in the oven, as I turned to the block of dark chocolate on the counter. I chopped it up into fine little pieces, while the cream heated up on the stove. The heavy cream poured over the chocolate shards melted them slowly, forming a beautiful, silky ganache that shined like her eyes in the moonlight.
After the tart crust cooled, I poured the ganache into it, and topped it with some raspberries. Little mounds of red fire in a sea of glossy richness. The tartness as a contrast to the velvety texture beneath, the bright red against the dark brown, the passion between the two of us embodied in a nine-inch circle.
I drove to the airport after making the chocolate ganache tart, eagerly anticipating seeing her face again. I ran into the terminal, looking up at the screens to find her flight. She would be in my arms in mere minutes, and even though I didn’t know we would be back together, I looked forward to the sensation of her embrace.
Red flashed before my eyes, an unwelcome intruder in the dream-like state I was in. The flight she was supposed to be on flashed in red, as I saw television screens nearby turn to a news channel. Her flight had crashed in the mountains. A faulty propeller had gone unnoticed, and the plane had crash-landed in a remote mountain range on the way here. There were no survivors.
I felt numb all over. The love of my life had left me for six months, I thought. But now she was gone forever. I would never kiss her lips again. I would never see her smile again. I would never be intimate with her again. I could never lie in bed with her and feel safe ever again.
The shock was too much. I couldn’t even cry. I went back to my apartment in a daze. I couldn’t even remember the drive back. All I wanted to do was go back into the safety of my apartment, isolated from the real world outside. The world without her.
I cut into the tart I had made for her. I was imagining us enjoying it together, catching up on our lives over the past months we spent apart. But that was just a fantasy now. It would never come true. My teeth sank into the dark chocolate ganache. The subtle sweetness and the creamy texture permeated my mouth, as I bit into a raspberry, its juicy flesh bursting in my mouth, releasing a flood of tartness that tempered the rich chocolate flavor that coated my tongue.
Goodbye, my love. The times we spent together, I’ll never forget. Your name will never again escape my lips. As long as I never mention your name, you’ll always be alive inside of me.
Gosh that sure ended sadly. Well, luckily when I made this, nobody died.
Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart
from Joy the Baker Cookbook
Crust
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 stick unsalted butter, cold
1 egg yolk, beaten
Ganache
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
Topping
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
chocolate shavings
- Combine flour, sugar, salt and spices in a bowl.
- Cut in the stick of butter with your fingers until incorporated.
- Mix in the egg yolk with a fork.
- Press the mixture into the sides and bottom of a 9-inch tart pan.
- Place the tart pan with the crust in it in the freezer for an hour.
- Make the ganache by first heating up the cream until it’s at a lower simmer.
- Pour the hot cream on the chopped dark chocolate, and stir with a whisk until it melts.
- Cut the half-stick of butter in half and place the halves in the ganache, stirring until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Set this mixture aside to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Butter a piece of foil and place the foil with the buttered side down on top of the tart crust.
- Bake the crust for 20 minutes.
- Remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
- Let the crust cool completely.
- Fill the crust with the chocolate ganache.
- Beat the 3/4 cup of cream with powdered sugar until soft peaks form.
- Sprinkle the raspberries and blueberries on top of the ganache.
- Dollop the whipped cream in the middle of the tart.
- Sprinkle the chocolate shavings on top of the whipped cream.
The crust. It’s quite crumbly.
Then I pressed the dough into the tart pan, in the process getting a bunch of crumbs on my counter.
Here’s the crust after it sat in the freezer for an hour and then in the oven for 35 minutes. It puffed up a fair bit, though, despite the freezing and the foil.
The chocolate ganache is nice and shiny.
I put the ganache into the tart shell and smoothed it out a bit. It’s all gonna get covered up really soon anyway.
I put some raspberries in a ring around the edge, along with some blueberries and leftover raspberries in the middle. The original recipe actually called for blackberries instead of blueberries, but that’s what my local market had, so I used them.
The bright red raspberries and the deep blue blueberries look delicious.
Then some sweetened cream and chocolate shavings on top. Of course, my camera skills are horrible, so the whipped cream has totally thrown the white balance off.
I thought the dark chocolate ganache was so rich and delicious, but then again I’m biased towards dark chocolate. The berries also added a nice tartness against the rich chocolate. The crust was a little thick and hard to cut through with a fork, unfortunately. I’ll have to work on getting the crust a bit thinner next time. But this recipe is definitely a keeper.