Paloma cocktail tart

Last Saturday I went to dinner at former Noma pastry chef and Copenhagen taco queen Rosio Sanchez’s Mexican restaurant Sanchez. And I fell in love with the flavours from first sip of my cocktail to the last bite of the dessert. So much so that I started mulling over a dessert to mash up two of my favourite eats from that evening: The first cocktail and the dessert. The cocktail was a Paloma, tequila, grapefruit soda and lime and the dessert was a crispy churro topped with mezcal and vanilla parfait, bitter cream and citrus zest.

I love having different textures in a tart, like the bergamot marmalade in the yuzu-bergamot tart, where there is something crispy (pastry), something chewy (marmalade) and something soft (citrus cream), but wanted to do something a little different for this tart. Pate de fruit is a French candy made from fruit purée, sugar, yellow pectin and citric acid that sets as a chewy-soft, not gelatinous gummy. It is often combined with ganache and enrobed in chocolate, a combination I find absolutely divine, so I decided to go with that for my tart. 

I kept the pate de fruit tangy with a bright grapefruit and lime punch to balance the sweetness of the ganache. The ganache is flavoured with tequila and burnt vanilla and is crazy delicious on its own (I may or may not have eaten leftovers with a spoon). I am thinking of doing a tequila vanilla ice cream at some point. 

This is my favourite thing I have made so far. The different textures, the flavours coming together on the palate, it is in my humble opinion perfection! 

Paloma cocktail tart

Pate sablée

Six 10cm tarts (two 23cm tarts)

2 large egg yolk
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
350g cake flour
50g almond flour
100g confectioners sugar
1 tsp. Fine salt
 225g cold unsalted butter, cubed 

Combine the egg yolks and heavy cream in a bowl and mix with a fork until combined. 

Add flour, sugar, almond flour, and salt in a food processor, and pulse to combine. Spread the butter cubes over the flour and pulse until the texture is like almond meal. With the machine running on low speed, pour in the egg yolk-mixture and process until the dough comes together. 

Remove the dough from the bowl and form two balls. Press them into two flat discs, wrap in cling film and chill for at least 1 hour. 

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, divide each disc in three and roll out 3-4mm thick discs. Line the prepared tart tins with the pastry and freeze for 15-30 minutes, until the dough is very firm. 

Preheat oven to 175C. 

Line the tart shells with a sheet of aluminium foil, fill with pie weights or dried beans and bake blind for 15 minutes. Lift out the foil with the pie weights and bake until the pastry is golden brown and crisp, about 5-10 minutes longer. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Pink Grapefruit Pâte de Fruit

34g  sugar 1
8,5g yellow pectin
200g fresh pressed grapefruit juice
100g lime juice
45g  glucose syrup
190g sugar 2
185g sugar 3
2,5g  citric acid

Combine sugar 1 with the pectin in a small bowl, and set aside. 

Whisk together the grapefruit juice, lime juice and sugar-pectin mixture in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to  boil over medium-high heat, then add the glucose syrup. Bring back to a boil, whisk in sugar 2 and continue whisking until mixture is boiling again. Add sugar 3 and whisk until mixture returns to a boil. Continue cooking until the pate de fruit reaches 106C on an instant read thermometer, whisking constantly. 

Immediately remove from heat, whisk in citric acid and pour in the very hot pate de fruit mixture in the 6 tart shells. Leave to cool in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Burnt vanilla tequila ganache

400 grams heavy cream
1 tsp. burnt vanilla powder, or 1 tsp. vanilla extract  
450 grams white chocolate (I used Valrhona Orelys)
60ml quality silver tequila
Pinch of salt, to taste

Finely chop the chocolate, and put in a large, heat proof bowl. Add cream and vanilla to a saucepan, and bring to just below boiling point. Remove from heat and pour over the white chocolate. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes, so the cream melts the chocolate. Gently mix the ganache using a spatula to slowly stir together the chocolate and cream, taking care to avoid trapping air bubbles in the ganache. When the ganache is emulsified, gently stir in the tequila and season with salt. Pour the ganache over the set pate de fruit, and return to the fridge to set for an hour. 

Finish with grated lime and grapefruit zest and serve at room temperature.