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Bittersweet Chocolate Basil Tart with Honey Grapefruit Sauce

A tart made with chocolate, basil, and a honey grapefruit sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and honey work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 236 recipes mention both. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven350°F
Time30 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Add flour and egg in two parts and beat just until combined.

  3. Shape dough into a disk, wrap in waxed paper, and chill 1 to 24 hours.

  4. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin to 1/8- to 1/4-inch thickness.

  5. Transfer to a 9-inch tart pan, press in sides and bottom, and trim any excess dough around edges.

  6. Preheat oven to 350°F.

  7. Cover dough with a large piece of foil and weigh down with uncooked rice or beans.

  8. Bake 20 minutes, remove foil and beans, and bake 10 minutes longer, or until light golden brown.

  9. Cool on a rack.

Make the chocolate basil filling

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring cream, milk, and basil just to a boil.

  3. Remove pan from heat, cover, and steep 10 minutes.

  4. Place chocolate in a medium bowl.

  5. Pour cream mixture through a strainer over chocolate and whisk until smooth.

  6. Let cool 10 minutes, then whisk in egg.

  7. Pour chocolate into tart shell.

  8. Bake 20 minutes or until filling is just beginning to set.

  9. Remove to a wire rack and let cool completely.

  10. Dust with confectioners' sugar and garnish with basil sprig.

Make the grapefruit topping

  1. Chop grapefruit segments into small pieces, saving juice.

  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring fruit, reserved juices, and honey to a boil.

  3. Add cornstarch mixture and boil 1 minute or until slightly thickened.

  4. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, and let cool to room temperature.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Basil + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + honeytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,333 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Honey + grapefruittop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and tenderness to the crust, and helps it brown lightly.
Cake flour
Low-protein flour gives the crust a tender, delicate structure.
Bittersweet chocolate
Sets into the rich, firm body of the filling as it cools.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the filling a smooth, silky texture.
Egg
Helps the filling set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Cornstarch
Thickens the grapefruit juices into a glossy, sliceable topping.

The step that matters

Bake the crust until light golden brown. Blind baking under foil and weights sets the dough so it does not puff or shrink, and a fully baked shell stays crisp when the wet filling is poured in.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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