Pierre Herme tarte au cafe

The last few days at school, we've been slowly assembling one of Pierre Herme's recipes. At first glance, his coffee tart doesn't seem that impressive. I've never purchased one and now that I can make one, don't intend to. But then again, with all the work that went into it, I doubt I'd make one of these suckers for myself. Perhaps if someone commissioned it, or for a birthday, I'd consider it.

It all starts out with a basic sweet dough tart shell. And I know, after all the previous posts, a tart shell doesn't seem that interesting anymore. Well for any dessert, you need a good foundation. Mine wasn't bad.. a little too dark for my liking, but it sufficed.

Next we piped out and baked some biscuits a cuillere, which are essentially lady fingers. It was a fun exercise in piping, but even with parchment paper on top of a pattern, it was still difficult to pipe perfect circles.

We then brushed the lady finger round with coffee and nested into the tart crust, sandwiched between two layers of gooey coffee ganache.

Next up was the coffee chantilly. Chantilly is sweetened whipped cream. But if we were to just frost this tart with whipped cream, that would be far to easy... and trust me, Mr. Herme does not make life easy. The coffee chantilly was put into ring molds and frozen. I don't have any pictures as they quickly went into the freezer. Just imagine a light brown colored disc, and voila! We made a coffee glaze out of a gamut of ingredients including super sticky mirror glaze and glucose.

Now the trick.. or rather skill required for this tart is that the coffee glaze must be between 38 and 40 degrees Celsius when glazing the frozen disc of chantilly. If it's too cold, it will freeze and not spread. If it's too warm, well... that's where the trouble sets in... as your disc will become a puddle of cream. It definitely requires fast fingers.

Afterward, the glazed disc is assembled on top of the tart crust. I garnished the tart with some gold leaf and chocolate molded in the shape of coffee beans. And there you have it folks. Monsieur Herme's tarte au cafe. A pain in the butt, but it's quite tasty.

And a top view and cross section, for those curious about how it stacked up... literally.