This recipe was inspired by an old episode of the Japanese Iron Chef, where the challenge was to make desserts with apples and chocolate. I love the idea of combining chocolate, something sweet, bitter, and creamy, with apples, which can take on a lot of spice, bitterness, and are naturally sweet and tart. I just so happened to purchase a bar of Royce Chocolate’s baked apple chocolate, and that felt like the absolute perfect thing to use in a dessert like this. When you think of chocolate and apple and tart, you would already have a pre-conceived notion for what a chocolate tart would look like, and what an apple tart may look like. With a chocolate tart, I think of a tart shell that is filled with a shiny ganache. With an apple tart, it could be like an apple pie without a top crust, a tarte tatin, or maybe a frangipane tart with apple slices in it. I wanted to combine those aspects of each tart together to form this recipe. For the apple part, I went with a technique similar to tarte tatin(gasp), where I make a miso caramel, then burn I mean caramelize the apples by searing them off in the caramel on both sides, then baking them off. The caramelized apples are then used in two different applications – the mushier pieces that unfortunately did not stay intact will be chopped up further and made into a jam. The sturdier pieces that did not turn to mush will then be pressed into a ring mold and will form a caramelized apple disk that will adorn the top of the tart. The inside of the tart, besides the caramelized apple paste layer, contains a ganache made with the Royce Baked Apple chocolate, dark chocolate to balance that, and calvados, or apple brandy. The tart shell contains cinnamon and gjetost cheese(caramelized goat milk cheese), to really bring this all together into a truly special recipe.

In terms of technical difficulty, this tart is up there, and I would give it a solid 8.5/10. The tart shell requires you to use a food processor, since the gjetost cheese can’t be broken down besides either that or grating it by hand. The miso caramelized apples requires a lot of attention to detail. You need to babysit these apples, making sure that they are coated and glazed in miso-cinnamon caramel until they are thoroughly caramelized. I would say that the miso apples and the tart shell are the two most important and technical parts of this recipe, and if either of them are not done properly, the end result will be a mess. The tart shell is key to layering up the other components, so if it is not baked properly and just falls apart, you really don’t have a tart. You can have some deconstructed nonsense, but that is not what this recipe was intended to be. The ganache itself is not terribly hard to make, but it does take a long time to set up. The glaze comes together relatively quickly, and so long as your caramelized apples are frozen enough, the glazing and assembly of that portion of the dessert will not be too difficult. And with the tempered chocolate garnish, while that does require some technical skill, my recipe includes the freeze-dried cocoa butter to fast-track the tempering process of the chocolate. By no means is this recipe easy, nor is it something you can make every day. Most of these ingredients are expensive or hard to procure. But it is absolutely delicious and if you ever can make it, it will be probably the best chocolate-apple dessert you can ever make.

Makes 1 6-inch tart:
For the cinnamon-gjetost dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 tbsp unsalted butter, diced and kept cold
1oz diced gjetost cheese
1/4 cup brown sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of cinnamon
1 egg yolk

In a food processor, blend together the flour, butter, gjetost cheese, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Once everything is combined together into a sand-like texture, add to that the egg yolk. Continue to pulse everything until just mixed together. Transfer the dough onto cling wrap, and from there, refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes.

Afterwards, roll the dough out to 1/8-inch thickness on a floured surface. Transfer the dough into a 6-inch by 2-inch ring mold that is placed on a lined sheet tray, pressing the dough into the sides of the rind mold. Place parchment and baking weights on top of the shell and refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes. Then bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Remove the baking weights and parchment and bake for another 10 minutes, just to cook the pastry through. Allow the pastry to fully cool before unmolding.

For the miso-caramelized apples:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp white miso paste
a pinch of cinnamon
5 apples, peeled, halved, and cored

In a nonstick or cast-iron pan, heat up the sugar, butter, and miso until the sugar turns a dark amber color, almost the same shade as chocolate. Sprinkle in the cinnamon. Then place the apples, round side down, into the caramel. Sear the apples in the caramel on medium heat for 3-4 minutes, until the rounded side of the apples begin to take on the caramel of the caramel. Flip the apples over and continue searing them in the caramel for another 2 minutes. Then flip the apples bake onto their rounded side, and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Take 5 of the apples and press them into a lined 5-inch ring mold placed on a sheet tray. Transfer the ring mold into the freezer, and freeze those apples solid, 3-4 hours. With the remaining apples, allow them to cool down and chop them into a fine paste. Spread the caramelized apple paste into the bottom of the tart shell and store in the freezer as well.

For the baked apple ganache:
2 tbsp calvados
2 tbsp unsalted butter
4oz heavy cream
2oz milk
4oz dark chocolate
1 bar Royce Baked Apple chocolate
a pinch of salt

In a pot, heat up the calvados and butter until the butter is fully browned. Add to that the heavy cream and milk, stirring that all together and bringing it to a simmer. In another bowl, add in chopped dark chocolate, the chopped Royce Baked Apple chocolate, and salt. Pour the simmering the cream on top of the chocolate and allow that to sit at room temperature for 1 minute before stirring together until combined. Pour the ganache into the prepared shell.

For the clear glaze:
1/2 cup water, in two parts
1 tbsp gelatin powder + 1 tbsp calvados
1 tbsp granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of cinnamon

In a pot, heat up half of the water, gelatin, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Once the gelatin, sugar, and salt are dissolved into the water, take the pot off heat and stir in the rest of the water. Let the liquid come down to 85 degrees F.

On an icing rack, pour the clear glaze onto the still frozen-solid 5-inch pressed miso apple disk. Let the excess drip off before transferring the disk to the top of the filled tart.

For the tempered chocolate garnish:
2oz dark chocolate
1g finely grated freeze-dried cocoa butter
a pinch of salt

Partially melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a double boiler. Take the bowl off heat and mix into that the cocoa butter and salt. Pour the chocolate onto acetate and spread in a thin layer. Allow the chocolate to firm up at room temperature for 5 minutes before cutting out disks. Transfer the acetate into the refrigerator for another 10 minutes before removing and using to garnish the tart.