Silky baked chocolate tart with cheat’s chocolate crust

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease the base and sides of a 20cmdiameter loose-bottomed tart tin.

For the cheat’s chocolate crust, place the shortbread biscuits and cocoa powder in a blender and blitz until the biscuits are a fine crumb, then add the melted butter and blitz again to form a “dough” that comes together.

Remove the dough from the blender and transfer to the greased tart tin. Press the biscuit mixture evenly into the base and up the sides of the tin using your fingertips. Place the tin on a baking sheet and put it into the preheated oven to bake, 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Lower the oven’s temperature to 160˚C.

For the tart filling, add the finely chopped dark chocolate to a large glass bowl and set aside until needed. Add the milk, fresh cream, salt and vanilla essence to a small pot, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and pour the hot milk-cream mixture over the chopped chocolate. Stir until all of the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth, then add the eggs to the mixture and whisk until well combined. Allow the mixture to cool at room temperature, about 20 minutes.

Pass the chocolate-cream mixture through a fine mesh sieve, then carefully pour it into the tart tin and place in the 160˚C oven. Bake until the tart has set, but still has a slight wobble in the centre, about 35 minutes.

Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool, 45 minutes, before placing it in the fridge to firm up, at least 3 hours. Remove the tart from the fridge and carefully remove from the tin, 5 – 10 minutes before slicing, in order to take off the fridge chill for serving.