Carac – A Traditional Swiss Chocolate Tart

Holiday traditions around the world centre around food. Prepping elaborate meals that may take hours or even days to cook. In our house, we’ve been planning and baking for days now leading up the big day. But there are times you just need something that is “homemade” but doesn’t take too much effort. This Swiss Carac chocolate tart is the perfect solution in those moments.

Carac

This traditional dessert is hugely popular in Switzerland where they’re sold in grocery stores and bakeries year round. Normally, the tarts are small in size and filled with a dark chocolate ganache. The main detail that makes this simple chocolate tart a Carac is the addition of a green icing as well as a sole dark chocolate button on top. However, sometimes, you will find it as a large tart that can be sliced and shared.

Even though it looks like a pie, traditional Caracs use a cookie like tart shell rather than the a pie pastry. It’s not hard to make and there are decent recipes out there for it. But I wanted to keep this recipe entirely fuss-free and easy to assemble, so a good store brought shell will also do the trick.

The Chocolate ganache

A good Swiss chocolate tart starts and ends with top Swiss quality chocolate…and perhaps that is true for all Swiss desserts! As for the Carac, a rich dark chocolate is needed to balance out the sugary icing. Eaten separately, the chocolate ganache can be too bitter and the icing too sweet, but together, they are just perfect. Add a chocolate button on top for another dimension of chocolate and you’ve got a great bite.

Also, you can substitute butter in the ganache for margarine or use a combination of both (I’ve seen recipes for both) because margarine can help make the ganache more supple. But we like butter in this house so that’s what I use.

Dressed up festive

As mentioned, a traditional Carac chocolate tart is green. But you can absolutely dye it what ever colour you like. For Christmas, red and green are the obvious choice. The amount of food colouring used depends on the brand you buy so just add one or two drops at a time until you have the desired shade.

Same goes for the icing itself. Adjust the amount of liquid used slowly as you mix in to the icing sugar. You’ll want to end up with a thick but spoonable consistency in the end. Also, the lemon juice is not essential but I think it adds a nice tang to the otherwise sweet tart.

There you have it! An easy to make and quick to set festive looking dessert for your holiday gathering…at any time of the year!