I gave nutrition data last year for Cook’s Illustrated‘s Chocolate Caramel Walnut Tart, so I’m not going to repeat that one. I believe my data from last year were based a higher-cacao chocolate than I used this year, but the biggest difference from the numbers shown in my previous post is always going to be exactly how much of the dough makes it into the finished tart crust.

Pie crusts

I wanted to give separate data for the two pie crusts that I made, since (a) I have the numbers, and (b) that makes it easier to calculate nutrition for another pie crust using the same or very similar pastry dough. Note well: I have used the more common and traditional serving size of 1/8 pie here; I usually cut pies into more slices than that. I’ve also provided the details for the whole recipe. For double-crust pies, obviously, you must double this number. (For the most accurate results, use the whole-crust values and weigh the dough before rolling and the scraps after rolling, then compute proportional values and divide by your preferred portion size. I often find that I only use about 90% of the pastry dough called for, but in computing the nutrition facts I have assumed that the whole dough recipe is used.)

Four & Twenty Blackbirds‘ All-Butter Pie Crust

For the Green Chil[e] Chocolate Pie, I used the regular “all-butter” pâte brisée rather than the chocolate version actually called for in the recipe.

Joanne Chang’s Pâte sucrée

Several of the pies from Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook call for a pâte sucrée crust. Pâte sucrée is more like a cookie dough in construction than a traditional pie crust — in fact, it’s made by the creaming method, like most cookies, and gets most of its liquid from egg yolks rather than water or juice as in pâte brisée. Chang’s dough is quite stiff and requires a good bit of effort to roll out; when using it as a tart dough, I generally follow the construction technique from Cook’s Illustrated, which involves freezing the flat sheet of dough and then using the tart pan itself to cut the dough to size. When applied to a 10-inch tart pan, Chang’s dough must be rolled out quite thin, and does not need to be weighted during blind baking.

Green Chili [sic] Chocolate Pie

This recipe is from Emily and Melissa Elsen, Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, p. 204. I’d call it a tart, since it stands on its own when removed from the baking dish, although it’s actually made in a nine-inch springform pan rather than a tart pan. And it’s made with green chiles (jalapeños) and ginger, not green chili (a stew made with chiles, onions, and cumin). But it was delicious regardless of what you call it, and I ended up making photocopies of the recipe for a couple of coworkers who particularly appreciate spicy things. I used Callebaut 811NV for the chocolate, as previously described, Country Hen eggs, and Sky Top Farms unhomogenized cream. For ease of comparison, I show eight servings per pie below, but at Holiday Baking Fest we cut it into sixteen slices, and for normal home baking I’d make ten or twelve. You know the drill.

Joanne Chang’s Bittersweet Chocolate Truffle Tart

The photo in the cookbook (Flour, p. 226, photo on p. 227) shows a straight-sided tart which looks a lot like the Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie-in-a-springform-pan. I used a normal (fluted) tart pan, but it was still a favorite of those who had a chance to try it, and it was definitely my personal favorite of the things that I brought to Holiday Baking Fest. I used Chuao’s 72% “tasting discs” to make this recipe, but the nutrition data below are computed using the more easily available Valrhona Guanaja (and Valrhona cocoa powder on top); the recipe specifies “at least 70%” chocolate.