Chocolate Pistachio Tart

I currently have an excess of pistachios in the cupboard so thought that I would attempt the Chocolate Pistachio Tart recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly chocolate book as a new year treat.

pastry
1 1/4 cups (185g) plain flour
1/2 cup (80g) icing sugar
125g cold unsalted butter, chopped coarsely
2 tablespoons iced water, approximately

Process sifted flour and sugar with butter until crumbly. Add enough of the water water until ingredients just come together when processed. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth. Cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.


Grease 12.5cm x 35cm loose-based fluted flan tin. Reserve one-quarter of the dough for decoration. Roll remaining dough between sheets of baking paper until large enough to line tin. Ease dough into tin; press into base and sides. Trim edges, prick base all over with fork.
Refrigerate 30 minutes.

Roll out reserved dough on floured surface, cut out 12 x 2cm rounds from reserved dough; place on baking-paper-lined tray. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan-forced.

filling
1/2 cup (70g) roasted unsalted pistachios
100g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup (100g) self-raising flour
1/3 cup(35g) cocoa powder
1/2 cup (160g) raspberry jam
12 roasted unsalted pistachios, extra
40g dark chocolate Melts, melted

Blend or process nuts finely.
Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; stir in sifted flour and cocoa, and nuts. Spread jam over base of pastry case; top with pistachio filling. Top filling with pastry rounds.



Bake 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 180C/160C fan-forced and bake a further 25 minutes. Cool.



Dip extra nuts in chocolate; place on pastry rounds. Cool before slicing.

Notes
- I have never greased my rectangular flan tin before with shortcrust pastry and never had any problems with pastry sticking. I did it this time though because the recipe said so, just in case!
- In my case I pounded the nuts with our new mortar and pestle, a Christmas gift from M&DC!

- I was too lazy to cut out rounds and ended up with 18 small hearts, since that was the shape of the smallest cutter that I own. Also I didn't bother to reserve dough and used the leftovers from lining the flan tin. I rolled the dough out on the baking paper I had used previously.
- I knew that we did not have any raspberry jam, and I was planning to use homemade strawberry jam from C's mum... unfortunately there was none left! I did pull something out of the cupboard that I had thought was strawberry jam, but it turned out to be a type of jelly - no fruit at all in it! At any rate, that is what ended up on the tart as the only other jam I had was apricot and I thought that the mystery jelly would be a better option.
- It has come out of the oven quite high and cracked. I am not sure, I think it may be dry. I guess I will find out tomorrow! I will add the finishing pistachios tomorrow.