Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding is something I fell in love with even before I took my first bite. This British dessert is a warm, moist brown sugar cake lightly scented with vanilla, studded with plump dates, and topped with a luscious toffee sauce. 100% Yum! It just sounded so good I didn't need any more convincing after reading the description. And now that we're in the middle of Autumn, there's something so comforting about spooning into a warm, gooey dessert like this one. I didn't have dates so I used dried figs (shh... no one has to know), which no longer makes it an authentic sticky toffee pudding but it was nevertheless a delicious variation. Let's pretend I made it with dates so I can call it sticky toffee pudding because I like the name. The cake is light on butter and sugar but the toffee sauce more than makes up for that. Decreasing the amount of sugar in the cake prevents the whole dessert from being toothachingly sweet. Be careful with the toffee sauce though, it's so darn irresistible you may find yourself eating spoonful after spoonful. So better be safe and make a double or triple batch because the sauce can be used on other cakes and as a topping for ice cream. If you cook the sauce even longer, it will be thick enough to use as a filling for sandwich cookies.

Notes:
- According to Cook's Thesaurus, since the dates are being chopped up, use cooking dates rather than dessert dates because those are meant to be eaten whole. Many recipes recommend Medjool dates.
- The batter can be divided into 6 ramekins for the perfect serving size, but you can also bake 12 mini cakes in a muffin tin or a larger cake in a round pan or 8 x 8 inch square pan and cut it into pieces.
- I couldn't figure out why recipes call for adding baking soda into the water with the dates (the leavening power of baking soda dissipates when it hits the hot water?) but I used a little in my recipe anyway.

Sticky Toffee Pudding
6 oz dates, chopped
1 C boiling hot water
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 C AP flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Toffee Sauce:
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C heavy cream
4 Tbsp butter


Roughly chop your dates with a knife or in the food processor and put the chopped dates in a heatproof bowl. Heat up one cup of water to a boil and pour this over the dates. Swirl in the baking soda, cover the bowl and set aside and let it cool for about 15 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Butter your baking dish; a muffin pan, ramekins, or a square or round cake pan would all work.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. Cream the butter and brown sugar. Then add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until evenly mixed. Before adding the dates, make sure the liquid has cooled down since you don't want to cook the egg. Add the date mixture liquid and all and mix. Then using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients. Mix until there are no streaks of flour but do not overmix.

Divide the batter among the muffin tin, ramekins (it might not look like enough batter for 6 ramekins but the cakes will puff up in the oven), or spread it evenly into a square baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. For my 7 oz. ramekins, it took about 25 - 30 minutes. Muffin size cakes will bake faster, and a larger dish will take longer, maybe 35 - 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan add the brown sugar, butter, and cream and bring to a simmer. Simmer and stir occasionally until the sauce has slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Remove the cakes from the baking dish (slice cake into pieces if needed). Poke a few holes into the cake and spoon some of the toffee sauce onto each cake. Let the sauce soak in and serve the cakes warm, ideally with a side of vanilla ice cream.

Plum Cake

It's starting to rain here and that means it's not going to stop for the next 6 to 8 months. As we approach fall, I'm saying my goodbyes to my beloved stone fruits. I love plums so I'm always eating them as soon as they ripen. It never occurred to me that I could bake with them until I saw Dorie's Dimply Plum Cake. Like many most all of Dorie's recipes, this is another delicious creation. You can eat the cake for breakfast with coffee, in the afternoon with tea, or as a midnight snack with a cold glass of milk. It can be topped with confectioner's sugar or in this case, whipped cream gently sweetened with a touch of honey.

Dorie's Dimply Plum Cake
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1 1/2 C AP flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 Tbsp butter
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
5 Tbsp canola oil
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the butter with the brown sugar then beat in the eggs one at a time until everything is throughly mixed. Beat in the oil, vanilla, and almond extract.

Meanwhile in another mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Pour the batter into an 8 x 8 baking dish. Cut the plums in half and remove the pits. Press the plums into the batter cut side up.

Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick or knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Top with confectioner's sugar or whipped cream. Sweeten the cream with a little honey as you whip it.

Looking for more plum recipes:
Helen's Shortbread Plum Cake
Anita's Elephant Heart Plum Cornmeal Cake
Lara's Baked Plum Pudding
Lara's Plum Bars

Lemon Cream Tart

My fellow Daring Baker, Mary, said "If the Daring Bakers were a Girl Scout/Boy Scout troop, then our manual with badges would be Dorie Greenspan's "Baking from My Home to Yours". Mary, I agree with you completely! Before I started food blogging, I am so embarrassed to admit that I was oblivious to this life changing book and didn't even know who Dorie Greenspan was. *blush blush* But after reading post after post from other DBs, I quickly did my research and set myself straight. As a baking newbie, there are only 2 baking cookbooks on my bookshelf and Dorie's book recently joined them. This book was everything I thought it would be and more - it's simply amazing! In the last few weeks I've owned this book, I've made more recipes from it than my 2 other books combined.

Dorie writes that she learned this lemon cream recipe from none other than the king of pastry, Pierre Herme. I know I'm bad to fiddle with a recipe like this one. Why mess with a good thing you know? But hear me out! Since my tart pan is 8 inches, I had to scale down the recipe which was originally for a 9 in tart pan. So 4 eggs became 3, and the 3/4 cup of lemon juice became a 1/2 cup. After appropriately scaling down the sugar, I also decreased it a bit because I tend to use less sugar in my recipes and prefer my curds more tangy and tart, so 1 cup of sugar scaled down to 3/4 cup but I only used a 1/2 cup. Finally, (here comes the biggest departure) the original recipe called for roughly 2 and a half sticks of butter which scaled down to 2 sticks. As much as I love butter, I just couldn't bring myself to add the full 2 sticks. Butter is the key ingredient that transforms an ordinary lemon curd to "the most extraordinary French lemon cream" because instead of melting like in ordinary curds, it emulsifies into something light and dreamy. But I just couldn't do it! In the end, I only added 1 stick of butter. I can't call this an extraordinary lemon cream, only an ordinary lemon cream, but boy was it the best lemon curd/cream I have ever tasted! I can only imagine how astronomical it would been if I had added the rest of the butter.

Notes:
- The recipe can generously fill an 8 in tart but can also be stretched to fill a 9 in tart.
- To stay true to the original recipe, use 2 sticks of butter.


Lemon Cream
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1/2 C sugar
Zest of 3 lemons
3 eggs
1/2 C lemon juice (roughly 3 lemons)
1 stick of butter, cut into one tablespoon pieces
1 premade tart shell

You'll need an instant-read thermometer, a fine mesh sieve, blender or food processor. I didn't have a thermometer so I guesstimated.

Bring some water to a simmer in a saucepan. Meanwhile, in a heatproof bowl big enough that you can set over the saucepan, rub the zest with the sugar, off heat. Then whisk in the eggs and then the lemon juice.

Turn the heat down so that the water is barely simmering, and set the bowl over the saucepan. Whisk and cook the cream until it reaches 180 degrees F.

As soon as it reaches 180 degrees F, strain the curd into your blender or food processor. You can discard the zest that's left behind in the sieve. Let the curd cool until it is 140 degrees F, stirring occasionally. This will take about 10 minutes.

Put the cap on the blender and turn the blender on high. Add the butter 4 tablespoons at a time. Keep blending for another 3 minutes. If the machine gets too hot, you can do it at 1 minute intervals, resting the machine in between.

I was expecting the curd to whip up in the blender, but instead the thick curd was as thin as soup after blending! *panic panic!!*

Pour the cream into a bowl or container and press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight (I would recommend the latter). After a night in the fridge, the completely soupy cream magically thickened into the best lemon curd/cream I have ever tasted! I didn't need to panic, I should have known that a Dorie recipe wouldn't fail me.

Assemble the tart just before serving. Spoon the cold cream into the tart shell and serve immediately.


P.S. Who says you need a tart shell. It's delicious on toast in the morning or *ahem* with a spoon. ;D

Tiramisu Ice Cream

Tiramisu is a dessert I never tire of in any form (tiramisu brownie anyone?). I experimented with a tiramisu ice cream during the summer and it was really tasty. But just because the weather is starting to cool down doesn't mean I have to stop making ice cream. I'm with Brilynn on this one; I'll be making ice cream through the winter, clutching the spoon with my fingers poking out of convertible mitten gloves, and trying not to dribble any on my Slanket. Plus, I still need to try David's tiramisu ice cream recipe because my goodness the mocha ripple swirl-in sounds fantastic.

I prefer marsala in my tiramisu but you can also substitute rum or kahlua, since those liquors are stronger, you can use half as much... if you want *wink* (ice cream can be a pick-me-up too). I think that doubling the mascarpone and using the whole 8 oz. tub would make it even tastier. The alcohol and extra fat will keep the ice cream soft and creamy in the freezer.

Tiramisu Ice Cream
1 C milk
2 egg yolks
1/4 C sugar
1 Tbsp instant espresso powder
1/2 C heavy or whipping cream
1/4 C marsala
4 oz. mascarpone

Stracciatella, mix in
About 1 to 2 oz. dark chocolate, melted

Heat the milk in a saucepan to almost a boil. Meanwhile in a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick, pale yellow, and ribbony.

Anchor the bowl by wrapping a damp towel around the base. With one hand ladle scoops of the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks while constantly whisking. Continue to temper the egg yolks with all of the milk. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat. Continually stir and scrape the bottom with a spatula and cook until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spatula. Draw a line with your finger down the spatula, if the edges stay clean and do not run then the mixture has throughly thickened.

Off heat, whisk in the espresso powder and cream. In another bowl, mix the mascarpone and marsala until combined and smooth. Whisk in the custard mixture. Chill throrougly in the fridge. Then freeze in your ice cream maker according to machine instructions.

In the last few minutes of churning, melt your chocolate. Then in the last minute of churning, pour a thin stream of the chocolate into the ice cream. As it churns, the chocolate will harden instantly and become shardlike pieces in the ice cream. If your machine does not have a hole to pour in the chocolate, fold in the chocolate with a spatula after churning.

Hidden Blackberry Cheesecake

Here in Seattle blackberries are everywhere, ranging from massive brambles that have invaded vacant land to itty bitty plants poking out of the ground trying to colonize new terrain. To my surprise, there were blackberry growing in the backyard. This was the first summer I had even been aware of their presence because last winter, the (small) yard, which was more like an uncharted jungle, was tamed landscaped into something more manageable. That is, you can venture outside without a loved one having to call a search party. The work also uncovered the blackberry bush and for the last few weeks I've been picking quarts of the berries as they ripen and I can hardly keep up!

Blackberry picking is a tricky business. The best looking berries are always the unattainable ones just out of my reach. I stare at them longingly, yearning to reach the plump, juicy berries glistening in the sun barely inches from my fingertips. I balance precariously on one foot, standing on my tippy toes, while stretching my arm and hand as far as they'll physically go to pluck that perfect berry. One wrong movement will result in an "Ouch!" as a nasty thorn pokes or scratches my skin. A tug too strong and that berry will fall off into the deep thicket lost forever. Even worse, just when I think the berry has landed safely in my palm, it rolls and slips between my fingers. Curses! Foiled again!! After an hour of the hot August sun hitting the back of my neck and my fingers sticky and purple, I say to myself "Okay last berry" but then "Ah Hah!" another perfect berry catches my eyes. Sometimes I am able to pick all the ripe berries before calling it a day but other times there is a limit to how many close encounters with the creepy crawly spiders, who love to take up residence amongst the berries, I can take. They send me running back inside patting myself down and repeatedly brushing off every inch of my skin. *shudder* "That's it for today I'll go back tomorrow," as I admit defeat. Now that it's September and autumn is slowly approaching, the blackberry bush has given the last of it's berries. Most have gone into quiet storage in the freezer and will serve as a reminder of the glories of summer during the gloomy Seattle winter.

A note about blackberry picking: Blackberries tend to grow everywhere and sometimes as your walking, you can't help but notice the easily accessible berries right by the sidewalk. As tempting as these berries may be (I pass berries like these everyday), do not pick them because the plants growing near the streets will often take in the fumes and pollution from the cars and that's not something you want in your berries. It's best to find an area away from roads and traffic for picking. Most parks in the Seattle area have plenty of blackberries so those are a great place to go.

From one of my recent pickings, I came inside with about 3 cups of berries and I really wanted to make some jam. But I'm didn't have pectin, and I'm too paranoid to can so I ambitiously decided to make some pectinless freezer jam. Steven warned me that when his mom and other friends tried to make blackberry jam, it ended up very watery was more like blackberry syrup but I was not to be dissuaded. After simmerring for a long time, I ended up with about a half a cup of thick jam and with only a few spoonfuls of sugar rather than cups, the jam was not cloyingly sweet and was immensely flavorful (very, very blackberry-y). So pectinless jam was possible and it was delicious!

Blackberry Jam
3 C blackberries, washed
3 Tbsp sugar (ratio of 1 tablespoon sugar to 1 cup berries)
1 tsp of lemon juice

To get rid of the seeds, puree the mixture and push it through a sieve or pass it through a food mill. I had some trouble pushing the puree through my fine mesh sieve so a food mill might work better.

Simmer in a saucepan until very thick and a spatula dragged across the bottom of the saucepan leaves a clear trail that does not fill in.

To avoid the canning trouble, just store the jam in your freezer and enjoy it quickly. But you won't need me to say that twice because it's so delicious on a buttered piece of toast in the morning or in a "Hidden Berry Cheesecake" inspired by Dorie.




While flipping through the baking book of the year (ahem everyone knows which one I'm talking about), the Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte really caught my eye. I loved Dorie's ingenuity in tucking a layer of berry jam underneath the cream cheese filling. Jams are usually good at hiding cracks and imperfections on cheesecakes but bringing it inside brings cheesecake to a whole new level of elegance. Not to mention in the gorgeous photo in the book, the top of the cream cheese torte was absolutely pristine with not a crack or flaw in sight. Since I didn't have cottage cheese on hand, rather than using Dorie's recipe for the cream cheese torte, I went with my standby cheesecake recipe of cream cheese and sour cream in a graham cracker crust. But don't get me wrong, Dorie's recipe looks excellent and I will definitely try it one day. This recipe uses only 2 bars (rather than 4) of cream cheese and as a result makes a thinner cheesecake.

Hidden Blackberry Cheesecake
Inspired by Dorie Greenspan's Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

1 pack of graham crackers (5 oz, 9 whole crackers)
1 Tbsp sugar
5 Tbsp butter melted
2 8 oz. bars of cream cheese
2 eggs
1/3 C sour cream
1/2 C sugar
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 C any berry or cherry jam

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Process the crumbs in a food processor until ground or crush them in a zipper lock bag by rolling over the crackers with a rolling pin. Add the melted butter and sugar and pulse until evenly mixed.

Press the crumbs firmly into bottom and up the sides (about 1 in) of a 9 inch springform. I like to use the flat bottom of a measuring cup or you can use the bottom of a drinking glass to push the crumbs in tight. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the food processor add the rest of the ingredients except for the jam, and process until smooth. Alternatively you can cream the cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer, add the eggs and incorporate one by one, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix until the filling is smooth.

When the crust is done, spread the jam evenly on the bottom of the crust. Then pour in the cheesecake filling. Bake at 350F for about 50 to 60 minutes, or until the center is no longer jiggly.

Run a knife (to avoid damaging the nonstick on baking pans, I either use a plastic knife or a wooden skewer) along the outside of the cheesecake and remove the pan. Let it cool to room temperature then chill before serving.


Since it's blackberry season, though nearing the end of it, here in the Pacific Northwest and with the blackberries straight from the backyard, I'm going to bring this cheesecake to the biggest patio party of the year, La Festa al Fresco, thrown by the lovely hostesses Ivonne and Lis. There's no such thing as having too many desserts right girls?

Chocolate and Caramel Tart

I have already professed my affection for tarts so when Veronica and Patricia unveiled this month’s Daring Baker challenge featuring the heavenly combination of chocolate and caramel, it was love at first sight. Their luscious selection from Eric Kayser's Sweet and Savory Tarts is made with a chocolate shortbread crust, caramel filling, and a layer of chocolate mousse. Bettina (Steven’s little sis) and I had planned to make it together, but things kept coming up and pretty soon she was getting ready to leave for college again. It was the last week of August and Steven said, “Hey... don’t you have to do your Daring Baker thing soon?” I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately but managed to set aside some time to make the tart just yesterday. If you've been checking out all the beautiful tarts made by my fellow DBs (you can find them here, you’ll notice that there are a few things wrong with my tart but hopefully I will answer all your questions.

You can find the complete recipe on Veronica's or Patricia's blogs.

Part 1: The Crust
The original recipe made enough for three 9 1/2 in square tarts or 10 in round tarts. I decided to make some little tartlets so I made 1/4 of the original recipe (it was easier to scale down by 4 than by 3). One thing that struck me as rather odd was the addition of cinnamon in the crust, and quite a bit of it too. I had never heard of combining cinnamon, chocolate, caramel, and hazelnut. Luckily Veronica said we could omit the cinnamon, which I chose to do because I’m not the biggest fan of it and many DBs felt the flavor was just way too overpowering in this case. Here are the ingredients I used for the crust:

Chocolate Shortbread Pastry
4 Tbsp butter
1/4 C + 1 1/2 tsp powdered sugar
2 Tbsp ground hazelnuts (I toasted some at 350F, rubbed the skins off, and ground them in the food processor)
1/2 beaten egg (I beat an egg and measured out half)
1 C + 2 Tbsp cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cocoa powder
Optional: 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I omitted this)

In a food processor or stand mixer cream the butter.
Add the powdered sugar, ground hazelnuts, and cinnamon if using, and mix.
Beat 1 egg and measure out half of it, add it the food processor or stand mixer and mix it into the butter.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder, and mix well.
Form the dough into a ball and chill overnight.
Preheat the oven to 325F. Roll out the dough and line the pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

Another thing you’ll notice is that although it’s suppose to be a chocolate shortbread crust, the amount of cocoa powder the recipe calls for is very tiny (original recipe called for 1 1/2 tablespoons and for the proposes of my scaling, I rounded down to 4 teaspoons). I scrounged around the pantry for the cocoa powder I rarely use and it looked absolutely ancient, must have been a few years ago. I didn’t trust the quality of the cocoa powder to use it so as a result, my crust is pale blond and not the pretty shade of chocolatey brown like it should be.

After the chill overnight, I went to roll out my dough. While it was very easy to roll out, when it came time to lift the dough into my tartlet plans, it cracked and broke into pieces. Not pretty. I was able to use a bench scraper to lift the dough into the tartlet pans and push together the pieces of the crust. I can only imagine the nightmare this dough caused when attempting to lift the whole thing into a larger tart pan.

Part 2: The Filling

Caramel Filling
1 C sugar
1 C heavy whipping cream
4 Tbsp butter
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 Tbsp flour

Although I only made a quarter of the dough recipe, since I was going through all the trouble, I made the full caramel filling recipe. Plus, extra caramel is an added bonus. The caramel making was a bit of a fiasco but in the end it turned out okay - it wasn't a complete failure. I started by taking my butter and cream out of the fridge so they could warm up to room temp. I poured the sugar into a saucepan and placed it over medium heat. There are two ways to make caramel, the dry method, which is just sugar in a pan (method called for in the recipe), and the wet method, which is sugar with some water and corn syrup. The dry method is more difficult because the sugar can burn easier, whereas the water and corn syrup in the wet method helps to stabilize the sugar. I didn't have any corn syrup on hand, so I decided to try my luck with the dry method. I really had no idea what I was doing. I started to panic, “Oh no what if the sugar on the bottom is burning, I better stir it!” and as soon as I stirred it, the sugar clumped up and stuck to my spoon, to the sides and bottom of my pot; it was a mess.

I kept the pot over low heat and slowly it began to change colors. However, I thought the sugar was getting too dark, and I panicked again. “Oh no, I think the sugar is getting too brown, should I add the cream? But not all of the crystals have melted yet.” So to prevent the sugar from get any darker, I added the cream and the whole thing immediately seized. At this point what I had was very light brown colored cream with crystallized sugar stuck to the sides of the pot and caramelized sugar stuck on my spoon and floating in the cream soup like pieces of amber glass.

Again I kept the mixture over low heat and the sugar was slowly starting to melt into the cream. Maybe the light was playing tricks on me but I thought now the cream was getting too brown. Cue panic attack 3. “Oh no maybe I should add the butter, maybe I should just strain what I have into the flour and egg mixture.” So I added the butter, turned the heat up to medium low so the caramel was barely bubbling. At this point, it had already been 45 minutes into the caramel making process and my patience was wearing thin but now things started to take a turn for the better! The caramel started to thicken up really nicely, the sugars on the bottom and sides of the pot started melting, and after what seemed like an eternity, I had relatively chunk-free, thick, gooey caramel. The strange thing is, it didn’t look very dark anymore, rather, it looked a bit too light. As I let it cool, I slowly sifted and whisked the flour into the eggs. When the caramel was cool enough, I tasted a spoonful and my god this stuff was delicious (well with a whole cup of sugar and cream and half a stick of butter what wouldn’t taste good?). I whisked the egg mix into the caramel and then poured the mix into the baked tart crusts half full (ended up using only half the caramel mixture) and baked them at 325F. The filling firmed up quite nicely in the oven after about 10 minutes.

Part 3: The Mousse

Chocolate Mousse
1/2 C heavy cream
3 1/2 oz. milk chocolate

Uh oh... I don’t have milk chocolate! Because I wasn’t feeling well that day, I didn’t want to go down to the store just for some chocolate. I know we weren’t suppose to use dark chocolate (I’m sorry Veronica) but I used the bittersweet chocolate in my pantry and that explains why my mousse is such a dark brown. I melted the chocolate and while it was melting I whipped the cream to stiff peaks. I was afraid my chocolate was too hot and would deflate the cream so I waited for it to cool. I waited... and waited... and waited... and by the time I finally added the chocolate to the cream, I had waited too long. As I began to fold it into the cream, the chocolate solidified into chunks and streaks in the cream and the mousse became very grainy and weird. I spread it on top of the caramel filled tarts and after an hour or so in the fridge, the mousse solidified into a thick, grainy, chunky mess. It definitely didn't look like the light brown, airy mousse in the picture from the cookbook. I had originally planned to pipe some decorative stars on the tart, but the mousse was so stiff and gross, it wasn’t pipeable at all; luckily it still tasted good. Ironically, I completely screwed up the easiest part of the tart.

As for the sugar decorations on top, I melted some more sugar and this time I resisted the urge to stir it (just the occasional gentle swirl) and it melted into an even amber color without any crystallizations.

The Verdict:
In the end, I don’t think I did proper justice to the tart because I totally failed at making the mousse. The crust was a little difficult to work with but it was tasty and I liked the subtle hazelnut flavors. I should have bought some new cocoa powder for it. I panicked multiple times about burning the sugar, but I don’t think I caramelized my sugar enough because the filling didn’t have enough caramel flavor. When I sliced into the tart, it looked a little light compared to the darker, richer hues of other DB’s caramels. Lastly, I really shouldn’t have used dark chocolate for the mousse because the intense chocolate flavor completely overpowered the very light caramel flavor of my filling. Perhaps if my caramel had a stronger and more developed flavor then it could properly stand up to a dark chocolate mousse. In the end the tart was still really delicious. I was able to make 4 6 in tartlets and we gobbled them up so quickly there’s only 1 left! I will most definitely make the caramel filling again and try my hand at the mousse again too.