Easy Chocolate Tart

 I like recipes but tend not to follow them exactly because I have the attention span of a goldfish. I usually add, subtract or replace ingredients to suit my taste or even change the entire flavour and mood of something but keep the general idea. But when I practised this sort of experimentation on Nigella Lawson's "Instant Chocolate Mousse" recipe... it didn't quite work out. I decided that it didn't need that much double cream and added about 50ml less than the recipe required resulting in a tasty chocolate cement. I was gutted. But then I had an idea! Instead of putting it in a dessert bowl, why not put it in a shop-bought pastry case and make a chocolate tart? It was a success! Of course you could make your own pastry case but that kind of deviates from the simplicity of it, no?

P.S. I am aware that in the picture the tart looks like a delicious Pacman.


P.P.S. I am now working on a white chocolate and lemon version of this. Shall post the results!

Makes one large chocolate tart

Ingredients

250g of dark chocolate (broken up)

50g of butter

60ml of boiling water

a tablespoon of vanilla extract

230ml of double cream

150g mini marshmallows (Don't buy the big ones as they take ages to melt)

Shop-bought or pre-made pastry case

Small white chocolate bar 

Method

1. Place the chocolate, marshmallows and the butter into a decent sized pan (if you have a heavy bottomed pan then use that to minimize the risk of burning anything.)
2. Pour the boiling water over the ingredients in the pan.
3. Stir over a low heat.
4. When the ingredients are almost fully melted take of the heat and leave to cool slightly.
5. Add the vanilla extract to the cream and whip until soft peaks form.
6. Check if the chocolate is cool enough (I stick my finger in it and if i can keep it there then it's cool enough. But I can get away with that as it's only me and my girlfriend who eats it. If it's for others then I suggest measuring it by having a taste.)
7. Mix in the whipped cream to the chocolate until thoroughly combined.
8. Pour into pastry case
9. Finely grate the white chocolate over the top.
10. Refridgerate for about an hour, maybe two.