I make a chocolate pecan tart for my family every year at Thanksgiving. My brother really liked it the first time I made it several years ago, so I just kept making it. So now it's like, 'my thing.' Anyway, this year I made two - one at Thanksgiving for my family and another one for Dan's family, which I made last week while I was watching Spider Man (which was fabulous, by the way). I've changed up the recipe a bunch over the past few years, and a lot of people have asked me for it. So here it is:

Tools
9 -inch tart pan with removable bottom

Tart Crust
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 and a half sticks unsalted butter
3 or 4 tbs of ice water

Sift together the flour and salt. Cut butter into dime-size pieces and cut into the flour using either a butter knife or your fingers (I prefer using my hands) until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Then work the water into the mixture 1 tablespoon at a time (might as well use your hands for this too) until the mixture just barely holds together. (I usually end up needing just 3 tablespoons of water, but not always.) Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter, turn the mixture onto the plastic and shape into a ball. Chill for 45 minutes.

(You can start to make the filling while the dough is chilling.)

After the dough has chilled, roll it out into a circle that's a couple inches bigger than the diameter of the tart pan. (Quick hint: I roll the dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap. This makes sure that it doesn't stick to the rolling pin and is easy to lift off of the counter.) Line the pan with the tart dough. One way to do this is to lay the dough over your rolling pin, and then carefully lift the rolling pin over the pan, and fold the dough into it. Use the tips of your fingers to press the dough along the sides and down into the pan. Remove any excess by pressing the dough along the scalloped edge of the pan. If there are any holes or tears in the dough, patch them up. Cover the lined tart pan and chill for 30 minutes.

I often have enough extra dough to make a couple mini tarts. If you have mini tart pans, line them with the extra dough and chill.

Filling
3 oz Valrhona 70% dark chocolate, chopped
3 tbs unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup light corn syrup
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 heaping cup of raw pecans, chopped
25 - 30 pecan halves for garnish

Preheat oven to 350. Melt chocolate and butter together in a double boiler and set aside. (To make a double boiler, place ingredients in a glass bowl, then fit the glass bowl over a small pot with an inch or two of water in it, making sure the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Stir the chocobutter mixture as you heat the pot until the water is steaming (but not boiling!). Remove the glass bowl from the steaming pot when the ingredients are almost completely melted, and continue stirring until fully melted. If you need more heat to fully melt the chocolate, just put the bowl back over the steaming water for another minute.)

Using a medium saucepan, stir maple syrup, corn syrup, and sugar over medium heat for 1 minute. Then bring it all to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Beat eggs. Add chocolate and butter mixture to eggs and stir vigorously until thoroughly blended. Add syrup and whisk. Add vanilla and pecans and whisk thoroughly. Let the mixture cool for 3 minutes.

Remove lined tart pan from refrigerator and place on a baking sheet (for easy transport to and from oven). Carefully pour the pecan mixture into the shell. Make sure pecan pieces are distributed throughout. Garnish with pecan halves. You will probably have some extra filling - pour any extra into mini tart shells, if you have them.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes. Carefully remove tart from tart pan. Serve at room temperature.

You can view larger versions of all the pix here.

Every chocolate-covered coffee bean I've ever tasted was made with bittersweet chocolate. Bitter chocolate + bitter coffee bean = yes, that's right, a lot of bitterness, which is why I'm not really into it, despite being the dark chocolate lover that I am. Then two days ago I finished an entire box of chocolate-covered coffee beans. I don't even drink coffee. Well, I do, but only socially and on weekends and about 1/3 of a cup every two weekdays. As I was crunching away, I realized what made them so delicious. It was the contrast in flavor intensities.

This particular brand of chocolate-covered coffee beans used milk chocolate. And it was that simple. Rather than overpowering the palette with bitterness from all angles, the milk chocolate and coffee bean pairing offset each other. The sweetness of chocolate softened the bite of the bean without overpowering the coffee flavor. The power of pairing opposites together can apply to other food and chocolate pairings as well (though wines operate a little differently and would not necessarily abide by this rule). I'd pair milk chocolate with a strong coffee the same way I'd pair a dark chocolate dessert with a sweet raspberry sauce or a crunchy bitter cacao nibby tart with a sweet, creamy chocolate ice cream.

That said, I recently wrote an article about chocolate and beverage pairing that is in the December issue of Diversion magazine (for all you leisurely doctors out there). In testing out pairings for the coffee pairing section of the article, I found that lighter, sweeter chocolates are delicious with strong roasts, and darker chocolates are delicious with mild roasts. It goes against the traditional espresso + dark chocolate pairing that you'll find in so many European cafes, but my tastebuds don't lie (at least not to me). Now that I've discovered how delightful milk chocolate-covered coffee beans are, it really highlights the concept of pairing mild + strong to balance and complement each other.

The milk chocolate coffee beans I had are made by a company called Intelligentsia. But they don't seem to have them available online. I got them at my local coffee shop. I found some others that you can get online here (but note that I haven't tried them).

I'm really into food pairing these days. Next time you decide to get all European on your morning coffee, here's a quick pairing guide to try out contrasting flavor intensities in coffee and chocolate:

• Strong black coffee + a piece of milk chocolate
• Mild black coffee + a piece of slightly more intense milk chocolate or a mild dark chocolate (50% - 60% cacao)
• Coffee with cream + a piece of dark chocolate (65% - 70% cacao)
• Coffee with cream & sugar + a piece of very dark chocolate (70% cacao and above)

Here's a picture of how The Tasty Show looks on the new XO laptop. Dan participated in the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One program, in which you donate one XO laptop to a child in a developing country and then get one sent to you as well. It just arrived today! I was kind of hoping for a hand crank, but then I learned that things have progressed since the hand crank design. These laptops cost around $200 each (which includes shipping to some of the most remote regions of the world) and were designed especially for children. The OLPC project aims to give kids in developing countries the opportunity to explore, to have access to ideas, and tap into their own potential. The Give One Get One program is going on until the end of this month.

I'm so vain. The first thing I wanted to do is see how my blog looks on this little cutie of a computer. More pics on Flickr:


You can see other screen shots here. And learn more about this awesome project here.

When I was in Toronto doing a chocolate tasting with Cote d'Or a couple months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Konrad Ejbich, who is both a delightful person and one of Canada's foremost wine writers. After being a fabulously enthusiastic participant during the tasting itself, Mr. Ejbich stayed on for a bit afterwards to chat with me about other pairing ideas. In addition to teaching me how to properly hold a wine glass, he also took a bunch of notes about our chocolate tasting and then wrote this comprehensive article for Canada's Style at Home Magazine about chocolate and wine pairing.

The article also featured the most awesome description of The Tasty Show that has ever found its way to print. According to Konrad, The Tasty Show is "the absolute gastroporn of melt-in-your-mouth moments." Gastroporn? Me? Who knew??

It all came at a perfect time, because I just happened to be compiling this list:

Dana's Favorite Gastroporn [Top 5 This Week]

1. Wild Sweets: Exotic Desserts and Wine Pairings: This is the cookbook I picked up at Whole Foods yesterday. Gorgeous photographs, bizarre ingredients, curious wine pairings, and awesome recipes with really long names such as "Apple softcake with dark chocolate and cinnamon soup" and "Milk chocolate and orange parfait with steamed meringues and orange and black truffle brown butter". I'm really excited.
2. 101Cookbooks: My friend Toby alerted me to this gorgeous food blog written by photographer and food enthusiast Heidi Swanson.
3. Whole Foods: I love Whole Foods. I like to walk around with my little basket and ogle all the pretty fruits and vegetables and then dream about all the weird chocolate recipes I could make with them.
4. Aapplemint: Another delicious blog that I look at for inspiration and for the pretty pictures.
5. Plum Produce: This is a tiny produce boutique in Boston's South End that is about the size of a compact car. It's not a grocery store, and you'll never be able to find everything on your shopping list there, but you will find the most beautiful local salad turnips, wild asparagus, spring onions, and porcini mushrooms that you've ever seen. (Among several other vegetables, fruits, spices, and preserves.)