This Grapefruit Tart is a confession of love. A recipe for the passionate, and maybe a little ambitious, bakers. I’ll be honest with you, this is a recipe that takes a lot of time and there are many different components that you must bring together to make this recipe work. But trust me, if you feel like giving yourself a little baking challenge, try this. With a bit of time and patience, this grapefruit tart will turn out soooo wonderfully. The bitter and citrusy taste of the grapefruit, combined with the sweetness of the dark chocolate, plus a hint of Campari, served with a tart crust AND a chocolate biscuit, and then topped with a crunchy almond brittle – now that is pastry heaven!!!
Your family and friends will feel honored when you serve this to them. And they will be impressed, Veeery impressed. Ready for the challenge? It’s go time!
This grapefruit tart features five incredible layers. The first step for making this recipe is the crust- a regular shortcrust. By following the instructions below, it should be easy peasy.
Next, comes the trickier part: the grapefruit cream. You’ll need two bowls, and two saucepans, one of them will be for the water bath. The challenging part is knowing what goes where, but if you read all the instructions for this step carefully beforehand, you’ll know exactly what to do and won’t have any difficulties. Make sure to have a silicone mold ready for freezing the grapefruit cream.
So, once the most difficult part is done, continue on with the remaining three steps. Next, you’ll make a rather simple chocolate biscuit. It will have the same size as the frozen grapefruit cream, so make sure to know how big you’ll be cutting it after it’s baked.
The almond brittle is pretty straight forward, too. When you pour it onto the parchment paper before baking it, spread it out slightly into the shape of a small disc. It will expand massively while baking. Keep an eye on it during its last 5 minutes in the oven so you can make sure it won’t get burnt.
The last step is making a chocolate truffle, which is kind of like a chocolate ganache, and it will cover the entire tart. Make this once you have all the other ingredients ready and assemble the tart immediately. The crust, some chocolate truffle, the chocolate biscuit, the grapefruit cream, and then the remaining chocolate truffle – oh my!!
Keep the tart in the fridge for at least 2 hours and then decorate it with the almond brittle and freshly cut grapefruit slices just before serving it.
This grapefruit tart is a real piece of heaven, enjoy it, and most importantly, be proud of yourself!! YOU DID IT!
GRAPEFRUIT TART
EQUIPMENT
- For a round, 24 cm (9 ½ inch) tart pan of
INGREDIENTS
Grapefruit Tart Crust
- 200 g butter plus a little more to butter the tart pan
- 130 g powdered sugar
- 1 egg
- 300 g all-purpose flour
- 50 g almond flour
- 1 pinch of salt
- 300 g filling material to weigh down the dough when baking i.e. dried beans
Grapefruit Cream
- 5 g of gelatin plus 25 cl water to dissolve it
- 50 g sugar
- 60 g egg yolk 3 yolks
- 60 g of grapefruit juice freshly squeezed
- Grapefruit zest from one grapefruit
- 180 ml heavy cream
Chocolate Biscuit
- 1 tbsp butter melted, to grease the parchment paper
- 70 g sugar
- 70 g egg white 2 egg whites
- 40 g egg yolk 2 egg yolks
- 20 g dark cocoa powder
Almond Brittle
- 20 ml milk
- 20 g glucose
- 70 g sugar
- 60 g butter plus a little more to grease the parchment paper
- 70 g almonds peeled and finely chopped
- 10 g cocoa powder
Chocolate Truffle
- 170 g heavy cream
- 15 g of glucose
- 150 g dark chocolate roughly chopped
- 50 g butter
- 15 ml Campari
Assembly
- 2 grapefruits freshly cut into thin slices
INSTRUCTIONS
Grapefruit Tart Crust
- In a large bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar with a mixer until it becomes light in color. Add the egg, and whisk to integrate it in. In a medium-sized bowl, combine flour together with salt, strain it with a small meshed strainer, mix with almond flour, and add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Change the blender attachment to the dough hook and knead for just a few seconds until the dough holds together when you squeeze it. Pad the dough together by hand (without kneading!), press it flat, wrap it in plastic wrap, and let it sit in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius (356° Fahrenheit), and butter the tart pan. Roll out the dough with a little flour until it’s approx. 4 mm thick. Then, carefully place it in the tart pan, without forming a border. You basically just want to bake a disc-like form. Cover with aluminum foil and fill it with the weighted filling material (i.e. dried beans). Bake for approx. 15 minutes, then remove aluminum foil with the filling material and bake on its own for another 10 minutes until golden brown. Finally, allow it to cool completely.
Grapefruit Cream
- Get a silicone mold ready that is 1-2 cm (0.4-0.7 inch) smaller than the tart pan.
- Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan to create a water bath for the mixture. To dissolve the gelatin, place it in a medium sized bowl, pour 25 cl of water on top of it while stirring it in with a fork. Then, set aside.
- In another medium-sized bowl, mix half of the sugar with the egg yolks without beating them.
- In a small saucepan, mix the other half of the sugar together with the grapefruit juice and zest, and heavy cream. Bring the liquids in the saucepan to a boil, and then pour it into the egg-sugar mixture in the bowl. Set the bowl over the water bath with the boiling water and heat the liquid up to 85° Celsius (185° Fahrenheit), or until the liquid turns into a thicker texture, and it coats a spoon when inserted. Make sure the water does not touch the bowl, or else you might overcook the eggs. Using a fine strainer, strain the liquid directly over the dissolved gelatin in the bowl and mix with the gelatin without beating. Pour into the prepared silicone mold with a height of approx. 3-4 mm. Put it into the fridge for 15 minutes, then transfer it into the freezer.
Chocolate Biscuit
- Preheat the oven to 180° Celsius (356° Fahrenheit). Line the baking tray with parchment paper and butter it slightly.
- Whisk the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Add the egg yolks and continue beating for 5 seconds. Then, gently mix in the cocoa powder with a spatula. Spread the dough out on the parchment paper with a spatula until it’s approx. 0.7 cm (0.28 inch) thick. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for approx. 15 minutes. Remove from the oven once it’s cooked all the way through (test it with the needle or toothpick). Remove from the oven, allowing it to cool slightly. Then, remove it from the parchment paper and let it cool completely. Cut out a disc-like shape the same size as the grapefruit mousse ((1-2 cm (0.4-0.7 inch) smaller than the tart pan).
Almond Brittle
- Line your round tart pan, the same one you used to bake the crust, with parchment paper and butter slightly. Preheat the oven to 170° Celsius (338° Fahrenheit).
- In a small saucepan, heat milk, glucose, sugar and butter, until the mix simmers. Remove the saucepan from the fire. Next, add the almonds, mix them in, and then incorporate in the cocoa, as well. Spread the brittle out slightly into a circle in the middle of the parchment paper (it will expand by itself). Bake for approx. 20 minutes until it has spread out, is light brown and does not make any more large bubbles. Remove from the oven, and allow it to cool. Make sure to keep an eye on it in the last few minutes of its designated baking time in order to make sure it doesn’t burn.
Chocolate Truffle
- In a small saucepan, heat the heavy cream with the glucose until it simmers, and then, pour the chopped chocolate on top in a medium-sized bowl. Let it sit for 5 minutes, and then whisk by hand to combine ingredients. Add the butter and hand whisk, as well. Finally, add the Campari and mix well. Assemble the tart immediately.
Assembly
- Coat the tart crust with a little bit of the chocolate truffle, just to make sure the next layer sticks to it. Place the chocolate biscuit on top of it, and then the frozen grapefruit cream. Pour the remaining chocolate truffle over this, and all the edges, and then run a bench scraper around the sides to smooth it out. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Right before serving, decorate it with the almond brittle, either as a fifth layer on top of the chocolate truffle, or you can crack the brittle open and decorate it in a more voluminous,3-D way. Finally, finish it off by adding the grapefruit slices. Serve, enjoy and be PROUD OF YOURSELF!
