Charcoal Chocolate Tartelet

2025a The Delicious Tartu dessert served at Café Crepp comes with a story about how it came to be. The goal was to make a black tartelet, without using food coloring or other harmful chemical dyes. Charcoal seemed neutral enough to use. As a result, the tart turned out to be a bit black, but the charcoal crunched a little unpleasantly under the tooth, and the whole combination tended to be dry. We tried a variant where we also added cocoa to the tart dough. As a result, the tart turned dark brown and slightly chocolatey. By reducing the amount of charcoal, it was possible to achieve a better texture. The crunchiness of the charcoal remained noticeable while eating, but we left it that way because some customers liked it, some didn’t, and overall it seemed like an interesting addition.
When summing up at the end of Tasty Tartu, it was clear that the diners were divided roughly in half: those who liked charcoal and those who didn’t.
Inspired by the Tohi Aronia Infused Gin from our good partner Tohi Distillery, the dessert was supplemented with artisanal ice cream, which I recommend making. In this form, the ice cream turned out to be very tasty. The use of two types of pastry cream added a French touch to the dessert.

Authors of the photos used: Silver Gutmann, Joosep Sepp, and Andres Tover.
Display design: Joosep Sepp.

Preparation time: Preparations one day in advance, assembly of the food about 5-10 minutes.
Level: Not too complicated
Quantity: 20 baskets

Charcoal baskets
Ingredients:
170 g cold butter
170 g wheat flour
2 tsp powdered activated charcoal
2 tsp cocoa powder
50 g icing sugar
2 egg yolks

Preparation:

1. Crush the cold butter with the flour until smooth.
2. Add the egg yolks, cocoa, charcoal (if desired) and baking powder.
3. Knead until smooth. It is important not to knead the dough for too long. For baskets, there is no need to create a stiff gluten network, and the less you knead, the more fragile the baskets will be.
4. Place the dough in the cold. It is easier to handle cold dough than warm and liquid dough.
5. Roll the dough into a 3-4 mm thick sheet. Cut the dough into rings slightly larger than the mold and press the dough into the molds, trim the edges with a knife if necessary and place in the refrigerator at +4 degrees for at least 30 minutes until the dough is completely cold. This will help the baskets to stay on the edges during baking so that they do not fall.
6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.
7. Remove the baskets from the molds and use them to serve the dessert

Vanilla pastry cream (about 1.2 kg)
Ingredients:
1L milk
2 tsp vanilla sugar
80 g cornstarch
8 egg yolks
0.1 tsp sea salt
60 g butter
150 g sugar

Preparation:

1. Heat the milk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to about 70 degrees.
2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, sea salt, vanilla sugar, and cornstarch until foamy.
3. Add the milk to the beaten eggs, stirring constantly with a whisk.
4. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has become about the thickness of sour cream.
5. Remove the cream from the stove and add the butter. Stir until the butter has melted.
6. Cover the surface of the cream with cling film so that the cling film is against the surface of the cream. This prevents hard “skin” from forming on the cream.
7. Cool the cream and use it to serve the dessert.

Chocolate pastry cream (about 1.2 kg)
Ingredients:
1L milk
2 tsp vanilla sugar
80 g cornstarch
8 egg yolks
0.1 tsp sea salt
200 g dark baking chocolate
150 g sugar
0.1 tsp finely ground allspice

Preparation:

1. Pour the milk into a thick-bottomed saucepan, and add the chopped chocolate. Heat to about 70 degrees. Stir and make sure the chocolate has melted.
2. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, sea salt, ground allspice, and vanilla sugar and starch until foamy.
3. Add the egg mixture to the whipped eggs, stirring constantly with a whisk.
4. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has become about the thickness of sour cream.
5. Remove the cream from the stove and cover the surface of the cream with cling film so that the cling film is against the surface of the cream. This prevents hard “skin” from forming on the cream.
6. Cool the cream and use it to serve the dessert.

Sour lingonberry jelly
Ingredients:
1 jar of lingonberry jam, homemade or store-bought
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon

Preparation:

1. Mix the lingonberry jam, lemon juice, and vanilla sugar in a bowl. Add about 50 ml of water.
2. Mix with a hand blender until very smooth. The lingonberry jelly should be slightly runny, but not too liquid. The thickness is thinner than sour cream.
3. If the mixture is too thick, carefully add water. You can always add more water, it is a hassle to remove.
   Use the lingonberry jelly to serve the dessert.

TOHI Aronia gin Ice Cream
Ingredients:
400 ml whipped cream
4 egg yolks
100 g mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tbsp crushed aronia berries
80 g sugar
Freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
50 ml TOHI aronia gin

Preparation:

1. I used frozen chokeberry berries. They are best crushed in with a meat grinder, but it would probably also be possible with a hand blender.
2. To make the ice cream, beat the egg yolks with sugar, vanilla sugar and mascarpone until smooth
3. Pour 50 ml of gin into a saucepan and boil off the alcohol, during which the amount of gin liquid will reduce by half or more.
4. Pour the gin into the egg-mascarpone mixture.
5. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and pour into the saucepan in which you boiled the gin, wash all the gin into the ice cream mixture with lemon juice.
6. Add the whipped cream and crushed aronia berries.
7. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and use the normal ice cream program. It is also possible to make this ice cream without a machine. It must be whipped a few times during freezing to prevent ice crystals and stratification.
   Use the ice cream when serving the dessert.

Food display
Ingredients:
Charcoal-chocolate tartlet
Vanilla pastry cream
Chocolate pastry cream
Sour lingonberry jelly
TOHI-aronia gin ice cream
Freeze-dried cranberry crumble for dessert decoration
Lemon balm leaves for dessert garnish

Preparation:

1. Place 2 tablespoons of sour lingonberry jelly from a plate on a baking sheet. Take the plate to the sink and hit the lingonberry jelly with a spoon a few times to spread it.
2. Place the charcoal-chocolate tartlet on the lingonberry jelly.
3. Spoon the vanilla pastry cream half way up the tartlet. About 3 teaspoons in total.
4. Drizzle the chocolate pastry cream over the vanilla pastry cream.
5. Place a ball of ice cream or an elongated ice cream quenelle on the side of the basket that does not have cream.
6. Sprinkle the dessert with freeze-dried cranberry puree.
   Garnish with a lemon balm leaf.
   Ready!!

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