Sunday, March 27, 2011

Baked Sunday Mornings - Malted Crisp Tart


The Baked boys are famous for their use of malt flavor in their confections. And this Malted Crisp Tart appears to be the grand-daddy of them all using malt powder in almost every component.

We were invited to a friend's house for dinner the day I made this and I took this for dessert. It was very well received and a few days later one of my friends told me she has been talking about it to her co-workers every since, commenting 'I've never had anything like it.'

Decadent and fun, this tart is unlike anything I have ever made. Layer One - A brown sugar crust that is rustic and sturdy enough what's yet to come. Layer Two - Milk chocolate ganache, rich and creamy and elevated with the addition of malt powder. Layer Three - Caramelized crispies to add crunch. Layer Four - Crushed Whoppers candy to add more crunch and texture. Layer Five - Malted dipolmat cream is light and airy. Layer Six - More caramelized crispies and crushed Whoppers.

At first blush this recipe appears overwhelming, but the individual components are simple and the rest is just assembly. I did spread this out over two days.

The crispies were my favorite and I had to shoo my husband and daughter away from them so I would have some left for the tart. The method for making these is very similar to a David Lebovitz recipe for candied peanuts that I love. Sugar is melted and coats each crispy becoming sandy and dry. After stirring, and stiring, and stirring some more, the sugar melts again and becomes caramel. These were awesome.

I loved the malted pastry cream too. It was thick, rich, and incredibly flavorful. I assume the addition of whipped cream is what makes a diplomat cream but I prefered the pastry cream on its own. The cream was looser than I was expecting and overfilled the tart pan and made this messier than I would have liked. I would recommend using less whipped cream to keep more of the malted flavor and a stiffer texture.

This was a lot of fun to make. I was hoping for a gorgeous photo of a slice showing all of the layers, but the cream layer made that pretty much impossible and I was stuck with the boring photo above. This is a fantastic dessert when the occasion calls for impressive, delicious, and fun.

Check out the rest of the Baked Sunday Mornings bloggers!

Note: I love the look and feel of Baked Explorations but have found the reviews about inconsistencies in the recipes to be true. For this recipe they should have provided more details about the caramelizing the crisp cereal and also indicated that this step can take 20 minutes or so. Calling for a volume measure of heavy cream in one component and then in a weight measure for another component is confusing.

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14 comments:

  1. Thank you for talking about the caramelized crispie step; I know now that I was too impatient and took them off the stove too early. Mine did turn out soft and chewy, but they still tasted good! This tart was so worth every step; yum!

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  2. This looks great. So I'm sure the slice looked amazing as well. Thanks for the comment about the cookbook. I may hold off a bit longer before I buy it.

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  3. How funny, after making this twice - I'd prefer the cream on its own too (without whipping cream).... that was terrific! So glad you made it and enjoyed it - a bit of work, but well worth it!

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  4. Definitely agree that the cookbook should have given better directions on how long it takes to make the caramelized crispies -- but I also thought they were fabulous! This tart definitely was a lot of fun!

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  5. I gave up on my rice krispies too soon too! Just another reason to try this one again! My cream could have used more whipping, maybe, or I'll just make a double batch of that... it was my favorite part.

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  6. I think that I could just eat any of these layers all by itself...I love the malt, I love the...everything. Nice post. Enjoyed reading your process.

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  7. Yes, I also agree about the directions on the caramelized rice crispies. I almost gave up thinking that I had done something wrong. Your tart looks lovely and I am so glad that you liked it. I like your idea of trying it without adding the whipped cream to the pastry cream. I might try that next time, although I didn't mind the messiness of my slice at all. :)

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  8. Wow - sounds delicious! I loove Whoppers - YUM:)

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  9. OMG, not only do we share the same first name, we made all the same observations for this recipe too! Candied peanuts, checked. Not enough details on caramelizing cereal, checked. It's uncanny! :D

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  10. What a lovely dessert. This is my first visit to your site and I've spent some time browsing through your earlier entries. I really like the food and recipes you feature here. I'll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  11. Oh my goodness this looks amazing! I love malt flavoured things, but I've never really experimented with it much. Tarts are my favourite baked good though, so I'm definitely printing this out.

    Ps. Thanks for your comment on my blog. I'm glad because now I've found yours :)

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  12. This sounds incredibly good! It's one of the recipes I hadn't flagged in the book, and I'm wondering how I ever missed it :)

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  13. This sounds so delicious and unlike anything I've ever heard of! It's so unique!

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  14. Thanks for your nice comments on my tart.. I think your looks tasty. If I try it again, I am going to make it full tart size instead of the minis and I will use less nuts. Nice work!

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