november-december: kerri’s dark chocolate pretzel tart

It took three attempts of different recipes for me to find the one I wanted to post for our salty and sweet challenge. I wasn’t happy with the recipe for the almond thumbprints with dark chocolate and sea salt that I made first. I found the biscuit base too crumbly, and that the sea salt addition didn’t really add much to incorporate a true salty and sweet treat.

Next, I made Nigella’s bacon brownies, which were actually quite yum but I felt was a bit of a copout! They’re great, though, and I’ve frozen some so I can have a sneaky treat when I feel like one :)

So, when I came across this tart recipe, it sounded like it had all the components of a true salty and sweet baking challenge that I wanted.

I had never thought to use pretzels, even though I know many people love chocolate covered ones. And because of this, when I found the recipe, I thought it would work. As you can see, the pretzels make a great base and add an interesting texture to the shell.

The original recipe uses milk chocolate, but I prefer dark… and my guests agreed. No one could stop at just one slice!

november-december: constance’s walnut salted caramel and honey pie

November,  also known as Thanksgiving, is a pretty busy baking time for me, and so when I came across this recipe, I thought it would be a perfect mash up between American pie fare and one of my favorite all time ingredient: salted caramel. I love caramel, it can take the shape of many forms, yet it is an incredibly basic ingredient – in a nutshell, it’s just burnt sugar.

This pie is extremely straightforward…providing you used the correct pie crust! November is a busy year at school for me and of course, rushing home, I absentmindedly, in my teacher tired haze, rolled out a French short puff pastry crust over the traditional American pie crust. For those who don’t know, there is a bit of science behind the art of rolling out a pie dough but that can be saved for another day. I was a bit unhappy with the presentation, but never the less, my guests gobbled it up and already asking for more.

For the sake of my first entry,  I went and did it again. I found that in the previous pie, the honey overpowered the taste of the caramel. This time, I readjusted the recipe to less honey and made the caramel reduction a lot thicker before pouring into the crust.  The end result was a lot more what I expected, a perfect balance of salted caramel accompanied by the honey and crumbly pie crust.

You can find the recipe here.