Chocolate Pastry

Who doesn't love chocolate? Especially when it's gluten and dairy free too!

I found this great chocolate pastry at the fantastic Allergy Centre at The Jamison centre. Now I have seen the plain shortcrust and puff style at Coles supermarket, but the Allergy Centre has a wider and yummier selection.

The Pastry Pantry is 100% gluten and wheat free, soy,trans fats, lactose, preservative, yeast and nut free too! It's also fructose friendly and IBS friendly.

It's sold in a packet of 3 sheets and each sheet makes 1 large tart, 3-4 small tarts, or 20 mini tarts.

It is nice to have a quick freezer option for entertaining, or just plain hungry days, and this is something often denied to us InTolerants, so this is indeed a valuable find!

The instructions require that you defrost the pastry for 3 hours at room temperature, so not something to whip up in an instant, but definitely do-able on even a busy day.

The pastry is a nice consistency and quite manageable as I manipulated it into the tart pan. I hate waste, and was determined to make one sheet fit. The sheet is the standard square size of other supermarket pastry which is another plus.

There, I did it! A bit of a patch job, but that will be covered by yumminess anyway. No tearing or splitting as I fiddled around and even as it dried out a little, so yet another plus!

The instructions also recommend blind baking the sheets first, but I was feeling impatient with all the mucking about and just docked it well with a fork instead. I popped it into the oven.... and waited with crossed fingers.

Riiiiiiiiiinnnnngggggg!!!!!!!! The timer went off and I ran to the oven. Smelt good... looked good, not much shrinking at all... firm texture, not soggy.... no minuses! The taste though, we'll have to wait and see.

Once cooled, I tried lifting the shell out of the pan, and it was fine with again no problems. There was a very small amount of shrinkage, and the patches had worked well, without coming away or falling off the top.

Decisions, decisions...what to put in the tart? I didn't want something too rich, so I chose raspberries, one of my bestest combinations. Isn't this pretty? Lined with ruby jewels of juiciness. I made a filling with 1 cup lactose free cream, 1 packet of 70% dark Lindt chocolate melted together, then cooled and mixed with 3 eggs. I poured this over the berries and then baked it at 170* for 30 minutes. I was concerned that the pastry might sogg a little, but again, it performed perfectly.

Now, the hardest part of all...... waiting for the tart to cool enough to devour! I let my little lovely cool at room temperature to firm up before attempting to push it out of the tin. It came away perfectly without a hitch. I tentatively held the knife over my tart, then plunged it in.... no breaking! no crumbling! no snapping either!

I have to admit that when I read the ingredient list and saw besan flour I was a little concerned as it has a distinctive flavour, but I needn't have worried as there is a nice chocolate taste. The texture isn't as short as one made with lots of butter, but it's not crumbly or rubbery either. There is a nice bit of bite to it and it holds up beautifully to being held in one hand without drooping and dropping filling in laps. A very important concern for lady-like behaviour my dears, especially when balancing a cup of Earl Gray Tea in the other hand.

I highly recommend this product and am eager to try the others in the range. It costs about $10 a packet, but well worth it as pastry making can be a real pain, and rolling it a perfect thickness is not my strongest point. I'll keep you posted on my findings.

So tell me Readers, what is your weakest point in baking?