Simple But Classic Chocolate Pastry Recipe UK

Recipe Notes

If you have any questions about how to make this recipe, please post a comment below and I will get back to you.

Servings: The recipe makes 8 tasty portions of chocolate pastry.

Calories per serving: 270 calories.

Remember: Please tag #whitakerschocolates with photos of your homemade chocolate pastry.

Laura's Top Tips for Making Chocolate Flavoured Pastry

I keep the butter in the fridge until the second I need it. Warm fat is the main reason chocolate pastry turns greasy and shrinks in the tin. I cut it into small cubes, then I get the flour, cocoa and sugar ready so the butter spends as little time on the worktop as possible.

I find it best if you melt the Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate first and then leave it to cool while you rub in the butter. When I rushed this and poured in hot chocolate, the dough went slack and sticky. Slightly warm is fine. Hot is not.

Cocoa drinks moisture, so this dough can look dry at first. I add the egg yolk and melted chocolate, then I sprinkle in the ice-cold water a teaspoon at a time. I stop as soon as the crumbs clump when I press them. Extra water makes the baked case tough.

I do not knead this pastry. I press it into a disc with my palms, wrap it, and put it in the fridge for a full 30 minutes. When I tried a shorter rest, the pastry cracked as I rolled it and the sides slumped in the oven.

I roll it between two sheets of baking paper when the kitchen is warm. That stops extra flour building up and dulling the chocolate flavour. I lift the paper now and then so the sheet does not crease into the dough.

A 23cm loose-bottomed tin gives a neat case and a clean release. I press the pastry into the corners with a small ball of spare dough rather than my fingernails, which can tear thin patches. I leave a little overhang, then I trim after the first chill in the tin. The second 20-minute chill is the step I used to skip. The sides hold up far better when I do not.

Baking beans need to come right up the sides. When I only weighted the base, the walls folded in. I bake until the edges look dry, take out the paper and beans, then give the base those extra minutes. A pale, soft base will go soggy once you add a filling.

If a crack appears after baking, I patch it with a scrap of raw pastry and return the tin to the oven for a couple of minutes. It is not pretty before it bakes, but it seals the case.

I taste the offcuts. If the pastry seems bland, it is usually under-baked cocoa, not a lack of sugar. A properly cooked case should smell chocolatey and snap when it cools.

Serving Suggestions

This pastry is a base, so I treat it as the chocolate layer and keep the filling in balance. A dark ganache made with more Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate is the classic route. I pour it in once the case is cold, then I chill it until the top is just set. A pinch of sea salt on top cuts through the richness.

Fresh raspberries or cherries work well because the pastry is already sweet. I pile the fruit in the centre and leave a ring of pastry showing. Soft whipped cream on the side is enough. I avoid a heavy cream filling and a heavy fruit topping together, as the slice then collapses.

For a dinner pudding I fill the case with chocolate custard and bake it until the centre has a slight wobble. That is closer to the old British chocolate tart than a fridge-set ganache. Serve it barely warm.

Leftover pastry makes small tartlets in a bun tin. I bake them empty and fill them later with lemon curd, chestnut purée or a spoon of chocolate mousse. They keep a buffet looking tidy.

A slice of the empty baked case with coffee is a useful test before guests arrive. If it tastes good on its own, the finished tart will too. Soft vanilla ice cream next to a warm slice is simple and popular at home.

Do not fill the case hours before you need a crisp bite. I add wet fillings close to serving, or I brush the cold baked base with a thin layer of melted Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate first. That extra coat helps keep fruit juice and custard off the pastry.

Nutritional Information for This Recipe

How to Store Your Homemade Pastry

Wrap the raw disc tightly in cling film and keep it in the fridge for up to two days. The cocoa flavour settles a little overnight and the dough rolls more calmly on day two. If the disc feels very firm, leave it on the worktop for ten minutes before you roll.

The raw pastry freezes well for a month. I flatten it into a disc so it thaws evenly, wrap it twice, and defrost it in the fridge. I do not roll it while the centre is still icy, as that causes cracks.

A baked, unfilled case keeps for two to three days in an airtight tin at room temperature. I leave it in the tart tin until it is fully cold, then I lift it out and store it on the metal base so the sides do not get knocked. The fridge makes the pastry soften, so I only chill a filled tart.

If I need to freeze a baked case, I wrap it well once it is cold and freeze it for up to a month. I thaw it at room temperature, still wrapped, then I warm it in a low oven for five minutes to bring the crispness back before I fill it.

Filled tarts are different. A ganache tart keeps in the fridge for two days, covered, but the pastry will never be as crisp as on day one. Custard-filled tarts are best eaten the day they are baked. Fruit toppings should go on at the last minute.

Leftover slices travel better if you chill them first so the filling firms up, then pack them in a rigid box. Bring them back towards room temperature before you serve them, or the chocolate flavour stays muted.

A Brief History of Chocolate Pastry in the UK

British cooks were lining tins with pastry long before cocoa reached the kitchen. Medieval English books already talk of tarts and “coffins”, the sturdy cases used for both savoury and sweet fillings.

Early pastry was often a container first and a pleasure second. Butter-rich shortcrust of the sort we use now became more common as dairy and refined flour grew cheaper.

Chocolate arrived in England in the seventeenth century as a drink for people with money. London chocolate houses sold it thick, hot and spiced. Cooks then began to move cocoa from the cup into baked dishes.

John Nott printed an early chocolate tart in The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary in 1723. Hannah Glasse published another in 1747. In 1789 a chocolate tart was served to George III as he recovered from illness: shortcrust filled with a rich chocolate mixture, closer to a baked custard tart than to a modern ganache case.

Those Georgian recipes still treated chocolate as a luxury. Cocoa beans were costly, and the drink had more status than a biscuit or a pie crust. Two later changes made chocolate pastry realistic for home bakers.

In 1828 Coenraad van Houten’s press separated cocoa powder from cocoa butter, which gave cooks a dry, mixable chocolate flavour. In 1847 J.S. Fry of Bristol sold an eating chocolate bar. Cadbury and other British firms followed, and cocoa became a store-cupboard item rather than a special-order drink.

Twentieth-century British baking folded that cocoa into shortcrust. Home cooks added it to sweet pastry for chocolate tarts, fridge cakes and dinner-party puddings. Television baking and weekend cookbooks made the dark tart case familiar: a crisp shell, a chocolate filling, and a modest slice after Sunday lunch.

The method in this recipe sits in that line. It keeps the old British shortcrust habit of cold fat, a light hand and a rested dough, then uses Whitakers Easymelt Chocolate, a modern couverture from a Yorkshire maker founded in 1889, to put proper chocolate flavour into the pastry itself.