There’s only one thing that my mom loves as much as me. Chocolate. Maybe not as much, but it’s pretty close. I first made this chocolate raspberry tart when I was in high school. We hosted a bake sale to raise money for our senior class trip and of course my perfectionist self had to go extreme and make a double chocolate raspberry tart. I ended up dropping the first one on the floor. Which taught me a lot about patience. Nevertheless, I created a second tart that day. And I made it to the bake sale on time.

My First Chocolate Raspberry Tart

My chocolate raspberry tart with fresh berries was a huge hit. But after I saved one large piece for myself and two for my parents, there were only a couple small pieces left. But, those two people sure loved it! I don’t remember what I charged for it, but I was so proud to make something that people wanted to buy. This sent me on a long path of practicing tarts and cleaning my trusty tart pan over and over again over the years. One of my favorite recipes of all time is my savory tomato tart, which is one of my mom’s favorite things too. This recipe is an old favorite that I decided to revive this mother’s day.

Besides chocolate, my mom loves walking, fried chicken, and television. I grew up watching tv with her and my reluctant dad after dinner. We watched American Idol, Lost, Survivor, more things than I can count. I don’t have siblings, so it was a really fun way to connect and escape life for a little bit each day. We had a schedule of our shows posted on a sticky note in the kitchen, and we would text each other throughout the day reminding each other that we get to watch TV together after big exams, presentations, and hard days.

Spending Time with my Mom

When I moved home during the pandemic, we dove back into TV together to pass the time and to escape from the world. 40 seasons of Survivor later. We also love to cook dinner together, and I call her the “sauce queen” because she’s incredibly good at throwing together a quick, delicious sauce. Ironically, I taught her how to cook. After school I usually did my homework and dove into Food Network, cookbooks, and google searches of croquembouche and cake recipes. I loved cooking dinner for our family of three to take one thing off of her plate. It was also an excuse to get creative and try new recipes!

I started by making burgers every Friday. Semi-homemade pasta dishes. Cookies for dessert. And then over the years I graduated into homemade pizzas, grilled steaks, fried fish, vegetable stir fries, Southeast Asian dishes, and a lot of chicken. My mom saw how passionate I was about cooking and slowly started letting me teach her things. Like how to make a roux. I would remind her every time we cooked that she needed to preheat the oven. And soon she was making new recipes from the Food Network site, picking up new things like Thai Chili sauce and real blocks of cheese. We’ve cooked dinner together more times than I can count, and I treasure them all.

My Mom’s Recipes

She’s turned into an amazing cook. My favorite things she makes are her turkey, potato, and corn pie (sounds odd but it’s delicious), her tuna casserole, goulash of course, meatballs, and peanut chicken. We have a good repertoire of dishes now that we make on rotation, and I always help measure and find ingredients for her while she reads the recipe on her pink iPad.

In addition to cooking, I have so many amazing memories of us baking together. Her chocolate chip cookies are legendary. My teachers would almost beg for them for their gifts at the end of each school year. I would stand on a stool to reach the counter and lick the spoon when we were done. We also make banana bread together quite often. She does the dry ingredients and I do the wet. My mom eats a special dessert, for breakfast, every Sunday, to celebrate making it through the week, so we usually freeze the desserts I make and thaw them on Saturday night. She is super diligent about her health, not eating too much sugar, and working out, which I’m proud of!

A Chocolate Tart with Berries

This chocolate tart is one of her favorite things ever. For context, my mom is someone who buys chocolate by the pound. She can be found leaving drug stores with bags of seasonal Easter candy. And she scours the web to buy special Godiva chocolates that they barely make anymore. She is very serious about chocolate. So, I started this recipe with a road trip to find a really good chocolate bar. I settled on a gourmet market in town with a host of Tony’s chocolate bars at the register. 70%. I like to go even darker, but my mom likes things a little more sweet than I do.

So I started this recipe by making the chocolate tart shell, which is so fun and cathartic. You start with a sandy brown flour mixture by massaging in butter bits. Then, you add a single egg yolk, and magically it brings the entire dough together. After chilling, I rolled the dough out and placed it in my old tart tin, artfully pressing my fingers in to patch up any holes or cracks. Then, the dough is chilled again and baked. The house fills with a sweet, slightly bitter chocolate smell when it’s done, and I love to trim the top edges of the crust and snack on the scraps.

Tart Decorating

Finally, I made a rich chocolate ganache with the 70% chocolate bar and cream. The ganache turns into something like a pudding by adding egg yolks. First you cook the filling in the tart shell and wait until it jiggles slightly. Then, you let it rest for a while and the chocolate sets. With the addition of cold air in the fridge, the tart becomes this magical fudge of silky chocolate and cream.

For the topping, I always use raspberries, but I’ve been a little obsessed with blackberries lately. I eat them a lot, and figured they’d pair well with the raspberries. I’m glad I used them, because when I was decorating the tart the alternating black and red berries looked so cool. I felt like a French pastry chef. And then I remembered I had encountered small purple and white wildflowers growing outside when I went out for fresh air. So I picked them and carefully placed them onto the tart, nestling the pops of color in between berries.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I absolutely love the look of this chocolate raspberry tart and the flavor is amazing. Just like when I made it in high school. And I’ve become a lot less likely to drop it on the floor with practice. And I’m a lot less of a perfectionist. I’m happy to report my mom just ate a slice for her Sunday breakfast and she loved it! If you are looking for something to wow your mom, not just today but any day, make this! It’s easier than you think, and it makes a beautiful, thoughtful gift. And I managed to get her flowers for Mother’s day, too. Right on top of her dessert. Two birds with one stone.

I’ll leave it here, because if I continue to write about how special my mom is, I’ll be writing forever. I’ve only scratched the surface of her magnificence, but she is my hero, and this recipe is for her. Happy Mother’s day to all the other amazing mom’s out there. I love you mom!

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Chocolate Raspberry Tart

A decadent and chocolatey tart with chocolate crust, ganache, and raspberries

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Keyword berry recipes, chocolate recipes, chocolate tart, tart recipes

Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author theforkedring

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 stick butter softened + 2 tbsp
• 1 egg yolk + 2 egg yolks
• 8 oz 70-80% dark chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• Pinch of sea salt
• fresh berries + edible flowers

Instructions

• In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, salt, and sugar.
• Cut 1 stick of butter into small pieces and work into the flour mixture with your hands or a fork until you achieve a sandy texture.
• Add 1 egg yolk and mix until a dough forms. Don’t overwork.
• Form dough into a disc shape. Wrap dough in cling film and transfer to refrigerator to chill for 30 minutes – 1 hour.
• Remove tart dough from fridge and let warm for 10-15 minutes.
• Roll out the dough on a floured work surface into a circle slightly larger than the size of your tart pan.
• Transfer tart dough to your tart pan and press the dough into the bottom and sides to adhere. If you have any cracks or loose bits you can patch them in easily.
• Once you’re happy with your dough (it doesn’t need to be perfect) transfer to the fridge again to chill for at least 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Once oven is ready, remove tart shell from fridge and bake for 30 minutes.
• Remove tart shell from oven and let cool slightly. In the meantime, chop up your chocolate and add to a large heat-proof bowl.
• In a saucepan, heat heavy cream, milk, and 2 tbsp butter over medium until bubbly. Pour over chocolate and allow to sit for 1-2 minutes before whisking into a ganache.
• To your ganache, add 2 egg yolks, one at a time, whisking vigorously to avoid scrambling. Add a pinch of sea salt and make sure there are no lumps or unmelted chocolate bits.
• Place tart shell on a sturdy baking sheet. Pour ganache mixture into tart shell and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the filling is slightly wobbly but mostly set.
• Remove tart from oven and chill for 2-3 hours on your countertop. The chocolate will begin to set, but be careful not to touch the top.
• Once the tart is cool, transfer to the fridge for 1-2 hours until firm. After that you can wrap in cling film without damaging the top and either freeze the tart for another day or continue to set in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
• When ready to serve, carefully remove the tart from the tart pan and top with raspberries and blackberries.
• You can optionally brush the berries with a simple syrup for a beautiful gloss and garnish with edible flowers.

Notes

• I use a serrated bread knife to chop chocolate bars. It works much better because it grabs the pieces as you cut!
• If your cream isn’t hot enough when making ganache and you end up with a lumpy mix of unmelted chocolate bits, return entire mixture to saucepan and cook for a few minutes until melted.
• When removing tart from metal pan, place a small, short metal can under the pan to help remove the sides. Then, serve the tart on the metal bottom (it’s not worth trying to pry it off and risk breaking your tart).