Baked Mango Pie in Chocolate Pastry

For a while now I had this idea of chocolate pastry with fruits and but I vaguely remember of making a chocolate pastry that turned out disastrously. Now I remember why: the chocolate pastry is more delicate than the plain counterpart, so it requires more patience and the chance of breaking it is much higher.

  Baked Mango Pie in Chocolate Pastry

For the pastry (for 23cm loose-based flan tin, or 6 small tartlet tins)

124 g unsalted butter, softened

60 g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

175 g plain flour

40 g cocoa powder

For the filling

2-2.5 mangoes (plus extra if you want to decorate)

2 eggs

70g honey

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1 vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 190C 10 minutes before baking.

To make the pastry, put the butter, sugar and vanilla seeds into a food processor (you can use and electric mixer as well) and blend until creamy. Add the flour and cocoa powder and process until a soft dough forms. 

Remove the dough, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of clingfilm to the required size. Peel off the top sheet of clingfilm and invert the pastry round into a lightly oiled loosed-based flan tin, easing the dough into the base and sides.
If the pastry fell into pieces don't worry, just push the dough into the flan base with your fingers, to create an even thickness. That is why the chocolate pastry is more difficult to work with as it has a biscuit like texture in the end. Prick the base with a fork, then chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Place a sheet of non stick baking paper and baking beans in the case and bake blind in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. 

In the meantime you can prepare the filling.Peel, pit then puree the mangoes with all the other ingredients.

Remove the paper and beans and pour into the crust the mango filling and bake it for another hour. When it is ready the middle should be still wobbly. 

Remove from the oven and leave it to cool, then refrigerate for hours before serving. I mean hours! If you leave the pie for at least 5-6 hours, it will turn into a delicious dessert instead of a standard, average pie. When it is properly chilled you will be able to taste the sweet mango with the chocolate biscuit base.........then the delicate honey.....and the warm cardamom. (I know the difference as we were inpatient, and eat two of them when they were warm.....you can't compare the taste.

So now it is up to you. You can serve as it is, I think it looks impressive enough, or you can cut little mango pieces and create a "rose" effect on the top.

Or you can pipe some whipped cream on top...well I did it all and regardless off the serving they are all delicious.

I also created a raspberry version of the tart. I mixed raspberry puree with mascarpone, icing sugar and some dream topping to make it firmer....but it was still quite soft. Don't get me wrong, they were a piece of heaven, but I will experiment with the texture next time and post the recipe when I created the perfect one.