BEST chocolate tart serves 10-12

I haven't written any posts on sweet food yet, so I thought my first one should be the best one! I got this recipe from one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants while I was doing my work experience and fell in love entirely. Every day when they were cutting the tart into portions they would cut a little extra bit off and save it for me. This chocolate tart really does taste like velvet, its so silky and smooth and just everything a person could want if they're feeling happy, sad, angry, jealous, hungover or any other mood. Its chocolate perfection. 

For this not to be too over whelming I serve it with salted caramel ice cream, the cheats way but shh.

Ingredients
sweet pastry: 
250g plain flour
125g butter
125g icing sugar
1 egg
filling:
200g 55% chocolate 
125ml double cream 
75ml whole milk
40 whole egg (approx two large, weigh them as they can vary)
Salted caramel ice cream:
tub of vanilla ice cream from the supermarket 
50g butter 
75g soft brown sugar 
40ml double cream 
salt to taste 

Method
Make the pastry by combining all the ingredients and rolling out, it can be quite fiddly, and you might need to put it into the tart tin in a few bits and push it together. Bake this in in the over with grease proof paper and baking beans at 180.C for 12 minutes, take the beans off and allow to cool. 
For the filling bring the milk and cream to the boil and then pour over the broken chocolate. Stir this gently to make a ganache, then fold in the whole egg. emulsify this mix with a bamix (little handheld blender whoosher blender thing as I call it) until smooth and glossy and there are no air bubbles. Pour into the pre baked tart case and blow torch the top to remove any air bubbles. cook this in the oven at 100.C for 54 minutes. I know this seems very precise but its so worth it. 
Meanwhile take the ice cream out of the freezer so it defrosts a little bit and make the salted caramel. Melt the butter in a pan and once it is all melted add the sugar and stir until melted, then add the double cream. This is more of a matter of a opinion so you can add more or less cream or more butter etc depending on how you want your caramel. then stir in the salt and taste, add more salt if needed or more cream! Then poke the ice cream a bit and stir the caramel into it, making sure its distributed in a sort of ripple throughout the ice cream. Put this back in the freezer to solidify again. When the tart is done allow it cool and then serve with a scoop of the ice cream, give the tart a blast with the blow torch again to make it nice and shiny. 

Enjoy! 

Don't blame me if you can't stop eating this, I did warn you. 

Figs with goats cheese and parma ham

This is a great starter for dinner party; really easy to do, it can be made in advance and impressive for the amount of work done! serves 4

Ingredients
4 figs
sliced goats cheese from supermarket, only one slice per fig.
8 slices parma ham
25g bag of rocket
olive oil and balsamic to dress

Method 
cut the end off the fig and do a criss cross on the top of it. Just about half way through the fig. Cut the slice of goats cheese in half, and then cut one of those halves into half again, so basically a quarter. Push the halved piece into one of the cuts you did into the fig, and then for the other cut use the little quartered pieces and push them into the other cut. It should be a criss cross of goat cheese, then wrap this up in two slices of parma ham and cook in the oven at 180.c for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is oozing out a bit and the ham looks crispy. Serve hot on a bed of rocket with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled over.