Sebastien Bouillet’s chestnut & blackcurrant tart

Thanks to this chestnut & blackcurrant tart created by Sébastien Bouillet, a famous pastry chef from Lyon, I made a very nice discovery concerning this surprising union between blackcurrant and chestnut. The different layers – particularly the whipped cream and chestnut cream ones – bring sweetness (and even more calories…), which offset the sourness caused by blackcurrant.

The only bad point: a bit long to realize. I replaced the small meringues by some pinches of whipped cream to spend less time on it (lazy me…).
Then, I can say that my tart was much tastier than aesthetically pleasing, even more when the cooker has a very limited artistic talent like mine…

 (8 servings)

For the dough: 150g butter, 100g icing sugar, 2g salt, 50g eggs, 300g flour.
For the blackcurrant filling: 30g sugar, 5g pectin, 120g blackcurrant purée, 30g glucose syrup.
For the whipped cream: 160mL single cream, 40g mascarpone cheese, 10g sugar, ½ vanilla pod.
For the blackcurrant biscuit: 25g butter, 45g icing sugar, 15g almond powder, 20g flour, 50g egg whites, 15g blackcurrant purée.
For the chestnut filling: 30g butter, 200g chestnut past, 70g chestnut cream
For the topping: 50g egg whites, 100g sugar, 1tsp icing sugar, a few blueberries, one candied chestnut.

 1.The sweet dough: put the butter in a bowl, add the icing sugar, then a pinch of salt. Whip it all together, then, add the egg and the flour. Knead the dough until you get a homogenous texture. Make a ball and put it in the fridge for a while. Put it out from the fridge, then spread the dough. The best thickness would be around 2mm. Line a cake mould (with a diameter of 20cm). Jab the dough with a fork, and put it in the oven at 160C, for 15 minutes. Let it cooling down.

2. The blackcurrant filling: stir together 1/3 of sugar avec the pectin. Put the rest of sugar in a saucepan with the blackcurrant purée and the glucose, make it heating up. Then, add the sugar/pectin mixture to the saucepan and stir quickly until it’s boiling. Let it cool down without forgetting to stir regularly in the objective to avoid the fact that the filling makes a crust on the surface.

3.The whipped cream: in a cold bowl, whisk energetically all the ingredients together until you get the right texture.

4.The blackcurrant biscuit: Preheat the oven at 200C. In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Once melted, stir regularly to avoid that the butter get burned. When the butter is getting transparent with a slight hazelnut colour, turn off the fire and let it cooling down. Stir all the powders together; then add the egg whites and the blackcurrant purée. Stir again and incorporate the butter. Pour the dough in a pastry circle (with a diameter from 18 to 20cm) and put it in the oven at 170C, for 12 to 15 minutes. The dough has to be slightly coloured. Once it’s baked, let it cooling down.

5. The chestnut filling: knead the butter until it gets soft. Step by step, add the chestnut past. Then incorporate the chestnut cream with an electric whisk. Take a pastry bag equipped with a “Vermicelli” socket and fill it.

6. How to assemble the tart: pour the blackcurrant filling on the baked dough. Place on top of it the blackcurrant biscuit. Then, cover this layer with the whipped cream, smooth it well with a spatula. Finally, add the chestnut filling thanks to the pastry bag.

7: Decoration: stir the egg whites and the sugar together. Make it getting thick in a bain-marie until the temperature raises to 60C. With an electric whisk, make a meringue texture. Then, put the meringue in a pastry bag (with a round socket) and make some little and nice meringues. Sprinkle them with icing sugar and let them drying for 2 hours in the oven at 80C. Embellish the tart with the meringues, a few blackberries and the candied chestnut.