Baking up a beauty with Audra Morrice at Palate Sensations

PUBLISHED August 22nd, 2013 04:00 pm | UPDATED January 20th, 2016 04:14 pm

Around this time last week I was basking contently in Superpat euphoria, greedily indulging in two of my favourite things: eating chocolate and getting messy. I was the chosen one, nominated by a higher power, to not only spend an afternoon consuming the most perfect, rich, TV-famous chocolate tart, but to be taught how to make it by the blessed creator herself. Audra Morrice, Singapore’s homegrown Masterchef Australia 2012 finalist came to Palate Sensations with the Lifetime Channel, to lead a hands-on class of beginners through the trials and tribulations of baking, to somehow get us to re-produce her famous Dark Chocolate Raspberry Tart with Cherry Port Jelly.

Well, the teaching must have been excellent because we got there…some how. I’m going to talk you through it as roughly as possible, because this tart is seriously awesome and if you have an oven, a fridge and some serious patience, then you ought to make it yourself. Just maybe not with my useless description! Get some proper instruction here.
First step was to roll out a super thin, evenly spread, hole-less, smooth, round base for short-crust pasty, which took us all probably a lot longer than usual. It doesn’t sound like much, but this is the most important part. If the base is wrong you’ll have seepage and disaster! Clearly I’m a pro…no?

With the base setting it was time to work on the filling. We melted down some dark chocolate with butter over the stove, which was to be the main chocolatey ganache of the tart and turned out to have a lovely fudgy texture.

Then we went on to make the jelly using port, sugar and gelatine and to be honest, at this point you’re almost there! We pour the ganache into the cooled tart base and had all our fingers in the dirty saucepan. Personally, I could eat it just like this..

But, we carried on with mouth drooling and stomach rumbling for a piece of this chocolate dream! Making the raspberry puree from scratch takes a while, especially if you want to get the most out of the berries. But, it’s totally worth all the effort of working and reworking those seedy raspberries for that extra sharp edge which adds a different dimension of flavour to the tart.

We decorated it and then we destroyed it, mouthful by mouthful regretting nothing. I’ve since made this myself and it really is an excellent receipe. Viola!

I know what you’re thinking.. ‘that looks great’, ‘she’s amazing’. Well thanks, but actually it’s down to some seriously excellent on-hand help, not just from Audra, but from the incredibly well-taught chefs at Palate Sensations. Felicia, pastry specialist, was on hand to steer everyone in the right direction and her expert baking skills were a much needed aid.

Besides this one off class, which I’m sure you’re now gutted you missed! there’s a massive selection of classes to choose from, and not all of them baking. If you want to stay true to the form of this article, they do have Advanced French Pastry classes, but otherwise there is everything from classes based around Crab speciality dishes to Paella. The set up is extremely clean and well laid out, but most importantly they are proper, hands on classes with the help you need on standby. This is prefect for team-building or just having some good fun with a friend.