Aurora Blood Orange Tart

I really enjoy the combination of orange and chocolate and had planned to make this tart for some time. I missed out on the Italian blood oranges available before Christmas, but picked up some lovely, juicy US-grown Moros from the market recently.

While participating in the Pie and Pastry challenge, I grew accustomed to the multi-component aspect of most of the recipes in this book and this one was no different. The components came together easily: the flaky crust (p22) baked up beautifully, the blood orange curd (p568) tasted phenomenal and set up well and there were no issues with the meringue (p575), which included grated, unsweetened chocolate.

The tart was assembled and baked in stages: first after the curd was added to the baked tart shell, then again with the meringue applied.

The meringue cracked during baking and apart from a crispy outer shell, seemed uncooked, and the curd, runny. I've not always executed these recipes correctly, but I've usually been able to identify the problem. I wasn't certain this time so inquired on the author's blog and received a very prompt response (very appreciative of this). It boiled down to possible oven temperature issues (I did calibrate my oven thermometer after this and it seems to be fine), baking times, and the tart's position within the oven.

Regardless, the tart tasted fantastic; it was my sister-in-law's birthday "cake" and she declared it "the best chocolate orange dessert she'd ever had!"

I plan to make it again, correct my baking errors and make the following changes: -I won't grate the chocolate in the processor as finely as it made the meringue look tan - I preferred the look of the pieces that weren't processed to a powder. -Although the flaky crust was fine, I would like to try it with the Chocolate Cookie Crust.