Chocolate Tart Dough

Today let’s make this lovely Chocolate Tart Dough! This is such an easy recipe, it makes for a super light, cookie-like crust.

Chocolate Tart Dough

To make this delicious and stunning Chocolate Tart Dough, we only need 7 ingredients:

  • All-purpose flour
  • Cocoa powder
  • Confectioner’s sugar
  • Salt
  • Butter
  • Egg yolk
  • Vanilla extract

How to make Chocolate Tart Crust

Cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 1 minute, until fluffy.

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creaming butter in the mixer

Add powdered sugar to the butter, mix on low until combined, and then cream for another minute until creamy.

creaming butter and powdered sugar in the mixer

Once the sugar and the butter are creamy and fluffy together, add the egg yolk.

And mix until combined.

creaming butter, powdered sugar, and egg yolk in the mixer

Next, add the vanilla extract.

Pro tip: If you are going for an almond filling for the crust, you may also add a touch of almond extract (1/4 tsp) to the dough at this point, along with the vanilla extract.

adding vanilla extract to the tart dough

After the extract has been mixed in with the dough, add the sifted ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, and salt.

Pro tip: again, if making a chocolate tart dough to fill with anything almond, or that goes along with almond, feel free to substitute 1/4 of the all-purpose flour for almond flour.

Mix the dry ingredients with a spatula instead of the mixer.

mixing dry ingredients to make chocolate tart dough

Mixing the dry ingredients with a spatula instead of the mixer will ensure the dough doesn’t get over worked, which could result in a tough crust later.

This crust is delicate, light, and buttery, and mixing the flour in with a spatula is a crucial step in order to achieve that.

That’s because mixing the flour too much will make the dough develop more gluten content, which will yield a tougher, denser crust.

Chocolate Tart Dough

Once all the dry ingredients are hydrated, and you see no more streaks of flour or cocoa powder, it’s time to stop mixing.

Transfer the dough to the counter and wrap it in plastic.

Chocolate Tart Dough wrapped in plastic

Let the dough rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours, and up to 2 days.

When it’s time to bake, remove the dough from the fridge and begin to roll it with a rolling pin.

Pro tip: let the dough sit on the counter 5 minutes before rolling, so it has a chance to soften up slightly.

rolling out chocolate tart dough

If rolling the dough on the counter, or on top of a pastry mat, you may have to use some flour so the dough doesn’t stick.

Just make sure you aren’t using too much flour, or the extra addition of flour might make the dough dry.

Pro tip: roll the dough out between two sheets of wax paper, so this way you won’t have to add any flour to this process.

Once you’ve rolled out a circle that’s about 3/4″ thick, carefully lift it off the mat or counter, and place it in a pie or tart plate.

Then, use your fingers to gently press dough the dough down the bottom and up the sides of the plate.

pressing dough down the bottom and sides of a tart pan

Pro tip: you can use a 8, 9, or 10″ pie/tart plate.

Also, make sure the dough is about 3/8″ thick in the pie plate after pressed down, because if the chocolate tart dough is too thin, it will break once the crust gets baked.

Use a knife to trim the excess off the top of the pie plate.

using a knife to trim off excess tart dough off the pan

After assembling the tart, place it in the fridge for 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 15 minutes, while you pre-heat the oven.

It’s important to bake the chocolate tart dough cold from the oven, because if the butter in the dough is solid, it won’t start to immediately melt as it enters the oven.

And this will ensure a nice shape to the final product.

Right before baking, remove the cold crust from the fridge, and poke some holes on the bottom with a fork, so this way, any trapped air bubbles will be released as the crust bakes.

poking the bottom of a chocolate tart dough with a fork

Place the crust in the oven and bake for about 20-30 minutes. At the 20 minute mark start checking, and make sure the bottom is not wet, and the color of the crust looks deep and dull.

The crust doesn’t have to look completely set and firm, as it will continue to bake and set as it cools down.

It’s just like baking a cookie, you remove it from the oven before it looks too done, otherwise it will be over baked, because it will continue to cook as it rests. But you also don’t want to remove it too early before it has had a chance to bake enough, so you will end up with a raw crust.

Chocolate Tart crust

Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool down completely before removing from the tart pan, or filling it.

You can store the crust at room temperature, in an air-tight container for up to 3 days.

Can I freeze this Chocolate Tart Dough?

Yes, this dough can absolutely be frozen.

You can either freeze the dough after you’re done making it, by wrapping it in plastic, and then placing it in a freezer ziploc bag.

Or you can also line the tart pan with the dough, and then place it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once the dough is frozen, wrap it with plastic, very tightly and securely, and keep it in the freezer.

I don’t recommend freezing it in a glass pan, you should use a metal pan instead.

The Chocolate Tart Dough will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To bake from the freezer, thaw the dough ball in the fridge overnight before rolling it and baking it. If the tart crust is already assembled, simply place it in the pre-heated oven from the freezer and bake as is, no need to thaw.

Chocolate Tart crust

Here are some ideas of how to fill the Chocolate Tart Crust:

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Chocolate Tart Dough

Chocolate Tart Dough

Camila Hurst
This Chocolate Tart Dough has a cookie-like texture and taste. It’s super easy to make, and it can be filled with anything you want! It is the best Chocolate Tart Crust I’ve ever made!
5 from 3 votes
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Resting Time 2 hours
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 8 servings
Calories 140 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 6.75 oz, 191 grams
  • 1/3   cup   unsweetened cocoa powder   1.38 oz, 39 grams
  • 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter softened 6 oz, 170 grams
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar 2.2 oz, 62.5 grams
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together. Set aside.
  • With a mixer, cream the butter for 1 minute until fluffy. Turn the mixer off, add the powdered sugar, and then mix on low until the powdered sugar has incorporated with the butter. Raise the speed to medium-high and cream the mixture for 1 minute.
  • Add the egg yolk, mix on medium until combined. Next, add the vanilla extract and mix.
  • Add the sifted dry ingredients to the bowl. Mix with a spatula until the dry ingredients are completely hydrated and the dough has formed. It will be soft and slightly sticky. Just make sure you see no streaks of dry flour in the dough.
  • Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter. Transfer the dough to the plastic, wrap it, and shape it into a disk.
  • Place the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours. The dough can be made with up to 2 days in advance.
To assemble
  • Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 5 minutes so it softens up slightly before you start rolling it out.
  • Sprinkle some flour on top of the counter, just don’t go overboard with it, because if you add too much flour to the dough, it might become dry and tough. To avoid using too much flour to roll out the dough, a good option is always to place the dough between two sheets of wax paper, and roll it out without using any flour at all.
  • Roll the dough until it’s about 3/4” thick.
  • At this point, carefully peel the dough off the counter and move it to a tart pan. You can use a 8, 9, or 10-inch pie/tart plate. If you use an 8, you might have a bit of leftover dough, which you can roll out and bake into cookies, since this dough is amazing!
  • If the dough breaks as you move it to the pie plate, don’t worry about it, because you can easily patch it up.
  • Use your hands to gently press the dough into the bottom of the pie plate and up the sides. Make sure the dough is about 3/8” thick, if it’s much thinner than that, you will end up with a crust that might break.
  • Use a knife to run along the edges of the pie plate to trim the excess overhanging dough.
  • Place the pie plate in the fridge for 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking.
  • Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.
  • Remove the dough from the fridge, and poke the bottom with a fork, to release air as it bakes and so that big air bubbles won’t form in the bottom of the crust.
  • Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20-30 minutes. Once the dough has a deep color, and doesn’t seem wet anymore.
  • Remove and let it cool completely before removing from the tart pan, or before filling it.
Storage
  • This dough can be frozen for up to 2 months. To freeze, you can wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and place it inside of a freezer zip loc bag. Or you can freeze the dough already assembled in the pie plate, if it’s a metal pie plate, I avoid freezing glass.
  • The baked crust will last for up to 3 days in an air-tight container, at room temperature.
Keyword chocolate, tart

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7 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    I love the fact that you mention the shelf life of the dough and after it’s baked. I don’t recall any other recipe that gives us that information. Thank you so much!

    This recipe sounds fantastic, I can’t wait to try it tonight. I’m thinking I might fill the crust with a knock-out frozen chocolate mousse!!

  2. 5 stars
    One more thing! I use an antique talc powder shaker to sparingly flour my board when rolling out pie crust or kneading bread…it works great and I don’t run the risk of over-flouring my baked goods. Besides that, it’s a very beautiful and unusual conversation starter in my kitchen 🙂

    1. That’s such a great idea to use the shaker! I’d love to see this antique talc powder shaker! Sounds lovely!! 🙂 Have a great day!!!

  3. Hi! I’m excited to try out this crust. I’ve made other crust doughs using a food processor, and I was wondering if that would work for this (instead of creaming the butter)? Thanks!

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