Chocolate, orange and pine nut tart from hotel chocolat's 101 best loved chocolate recipes

Ingredients

• 4 oranges
• Salt
• 200 g granulated sugar
• 75 g dark chocolate
• 50 g unsalted butter
• 4 eggs
• 50 g granulated sugar
• 40 g cocoa powder
• 50 g pine nuts

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Preparation

• For the chocolate shortbread pastry, mix all the ingredients together until smooth, either by hand or in the food processor. Flour your hands well and shape the mixture into a flat circle. Wrap it in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes to firm up before rolling.
• Pare the zest from the oranges in long, fine wide strips, using a swivel peeler and set aside. Next, peel away all the white pith. Segment the oranges over a bowl to catch the juice and squeeze the juice from the membranes, too. Put the segments to one side.
• Blanch the orange zests in a pan of salted water for 1 minute, then refresh under cold running water. Repeat this process, then put the zests into a small pan with the reserved juice and the sugar . Simmer over a low heat for about 10 minutes until the zests are translucent.
• Remove with a slotted spoon and lay half of them on a piece of greaseproof paper. Chop the other half as finely as possible and put into a small bowl. Add the orange segments to the remaining syrup and reserve for serving.
  
• Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5. Set a 20cm flan ring on a baking sheet. To roll out the pastry, place it on a large sheet of floured cling film on your work surface.
• Dust the pastry with flour and top with another sheet of cling film. Roll out to a round slightly larger than your flan ring, giving the pastry a quarter-turn between rollings to ensure an even thickness. Chill for about 15 minutes.
• Remove the top layer of cling film and drape the pastry over your rolling pin. Lift it over the top of the flan ring, with the other layer of cling film uppermost. Ease the pastry into the sides of the tin before pressing down the edges. Remove the cling film.
• For the filling, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir in the butter and reserved chopped orange zest, then remove from the heat.
  
• Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until firm, then gradually whisk in the sugar a tablespoon at a time, and continue whisking until stiff. Fold in the lightly beaten egg yolks, then gently fold in the cocoa powder with a spatula. Take a third of this mixture and stir it vigorously into the still-warm chocolate. Carefully fold this into the remaining whisked egg white, then turn the mixture into the lined flan ring.
• Sprinkle the pine nuts over the filling and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until firm around the outside, but still slightly runny in the center. Transfer the tart to a wire rack and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing the ring. Let cool to room temperature, but don't refrigerate.
• When ready to serve, dust generously with powdered sugar and top with the reserved candied orange zests. Serve accompanied by the orange segments in syrup.

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