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Dessert

Portuguese Chocolate Tarts

A pastry tart filled with a chocolate cream made from double cream, butter, chocolate, and milk.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,463 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

8 tarts
Oven400 °F (200 °C, gas 6)
Timeabout 15 minutes

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare the pastry

  1. Dust a surface with flour and roll out the pastry to a size slightly larger than an 8½-by-11-inch sheet of paper.

  2. Brush the pastry with the egg yolk and scatter the rest of the ingredients over it, being subtle with the allspice and cinnamon.

  3. Roll the pastry up tightly like a Swiss roll to form a long sausage shape.

  4. Cut the sausage into 1-inch (2½-centimeter) pieces with a knife.

  5. Set aside 8 pieces and freeze the remaining pastry for later use.

  6. Turn all pastry pieces swirl-side up and flatten them slightly.

  7. Dust the surface of each pastry piece with flour, then roll each into a thin circle about the size of a teacup saucer.

Bake the pastry cases

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C, gas 6).

  2. Grease and flour the outsides of eight glass tumblers.

  3. Place a pastry circle on top of each tumbler, pleating, pinching, and hugging the pastry around the tumbler.

  4. Arrange the tumblers on a baking tray, pastry on top, and bake in the preheated oven until crisp and golden, about 15 minutes.

  5. Remove from the oven and, while still hot, pat the slightly raised top of each pastry back down onto the flat bottom of the tumbler, giving a flat base.

  6. Allow the pastry to cool, then carefully remove the pastry cases from the tumblers.

Make the filling and finish

  1. Prepare the chocolate filling: place double cream, sugar, and a pinch of salt in a pan and bring to a boil.

  2. Once the mixture boils, remove from heat and add butter and chocolate; stir until completely melted.

  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in cold milk until smooth and shiny.

  4. If the mixture appears split, let it cool a bit more and whisk in a little extra cold milk until smooth.

  5. Scrape the chocolate mixture into the cooled pastry shells.

  6. Shake the filled tarts to even out the filling and allow to cool for 1–2 hours until room temperature.

  7. Dust the finished tarts with cocoa powder.

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. Cream + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,463 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Allspice + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together727 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, layered cases that hold the filling.
Double cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the chocolate filling.
Baking chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and sets the filling as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy texture and rich mouthfeel in the filling.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the pastry to help it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding cold milk to the chocolate mixture. If the mixture is too hot when cold milk goes in, it can split and look grainy. Letting it cool slightly first and whisking in extra cold milk helps it emulsify into a smooth, glossy filling.

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cinnamon, orange, cream, butter, chocolate):

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Cardamomabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Gingerabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, orange, cream, butter, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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