I would be lying if I said that this recipe did not take forever to make. A huge reason why I don’t do tarts(besides my sexuality) is that there is a lot of temperature and waiting involved. If the dough gets too warm, it won’t hold its form. If it’s too cold, it could be raw in the middle or take longer to bake. Just a lot of little details and factors that do not agree with my personality, I guess? But either way, these tarts were still very aesthetically pleasing and probably one of the prettiest things I have made in 2021 thus far! They feature chocolate and lucuma, since I love both of those ingredients, and I wanted to bring them together to create a really unique tart! The components into a chocolate tart shell that uses black cacao for extra flavor and chocolate liquor to create a flaky pastry, a chocolate-lucuma ganache, a lucuma bavarois that is stuffed with and glazed in dark chocolate, and blonde chocolate stars to finish. I named it “Get your wish”, since each tart has three stars, meant to represent shooting stars.

Makes 5 tarts in total

For the dark chocolate ganache:
1/4 cup dark chocolate
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
a pinch of salt

Microwave the ingredients until fully melted and combined. Pipe into silicone 1/2-inch half sphere molds and freeze solid. Press two halves together to form individual chocolate spheres.

For the lucuma bavarois:
1/4 cup lucuma powder
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon gelatin powder + 2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup heavy cream

Combine all of the ingredients, sans heavy cream, and bring to a simmer. Once everything is fully melted together, take off heat and allow the mixture to cool down to room temperature. Whip heavy cream to stiff peaks. Fold the lucuma mixture into the cream and transfer to a piping bag. Pipe the mixture into silicon molds and place into each your chocolate spheres. Freeze for at least 2 hours before attempting the unmold. Keep frozen until time to glaze.

For the dark chocolate tart shell:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons black cacao powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cold and diced
2 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon chocolate liqueur
a pinch of salt

Mix the flour, powders, sugar, and butter together first to form a crumbly textured dough. Mix the water, liqueur, and salt in to form your tart dough. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Then roll out the dough, and place into 5 lined tart or crumpet molds. Prick then freeze the dough for at least 2 hours. Crumble up the spare dough into smaller pieces. Bake the tart shells at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes, pressing them down while still warm to keep them in the right shape. The smaller pieces of dough should be baked at 375 degrees F for 17 minutes. Allow everything to cool before using.

For the dark chocolate-lucuma ganache:
1/4 cup lucuma powder
1/4 cup blonde chocolate
1/3 cup dark chocolate
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
a pinch of salt

Boil together all of the ingredients and stir until everything is fully melted and combined. Allow to cool down to just above room temperature before pouring into each tart shell. Freeze for at least 1 hour, or until fully solidified.

For the dark chocolate mirror glaze:
1 cup dark chocolate
1 packet gelatin powder + 1/4 cup water
1/3 cup milk
a pinch of salt

Bring all of your ingredients to a simmer, stirring until all of the lumps have been fully removed. Strain and allow the glaze to cool down to 90 degrees F before attempting to glaze the bavarois with. For glazing, I recommend using a bottle cap or a flat sided piping tip to prop up your bavarois, so that the excess glaze can run off the sides easily. Once glazed, allow the bavarois to sit for 1 minute to firm up the glaze, and then transfer onto the tops of each of the filled tarts. Garnish the sides with the crumbled pieces of tart shell, blonde chocolate stars, and gold leaf.

For the blonde chocolate stars:
1/2 cup blonde chocolate
a pinch of salt

Melt the two ingredients over a double boiler. Allow the blonde chocolate to come down to 88 degrees F before pouring onto acetate and spreading into a thin layer. Allow the chocolate to firm up in the refrigerator for 1 minute before cutting out your shapes and returning to the refrigerator for another 10 minutes. With the residual scrap pieces of chocolate, either re-melt them and repeat these steps until you have 15 stars, or reserve to garnish.