Our food culture never ceases to amaze me. Our very own almond, chocolate and orange tart, known to us as torta tal-marmurat, is one example why. A chocolate, almond and orange filling, encased in a butter pastry, and then finally topped with more chocolate and flaked almonds.
Originally seen as a dessert for special occasions, I can’t help but want to make it on a regular basis, like recently when my family were invited to a bbq. I always find any excuse to share my food culture with friends and family. Why not when it is this good!
Torta Tal-Marmurat
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
A beautiful traditional tart made with chocolate, almond and citrus. I love this tart any time of the year with ice cream or cream. I uses 2X20cm small tart/pie dishes but you could also use one larger tart/pie dish.
Author: @amaltesemouthful
Cuisine: Maltese
Ingredients
- Ingredients for pastry:
- 300 grams flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 150 grams softened butter
- Zest of ½ lemon
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 - 4 tablespoons water
- Ingredients for filling:
- 200 grams ground almonds
- 100 grams crushed sponge fingers (or anything similar)
- 100 grams castor sugar
- 25 grams cocoa
- 100 grams dark chocolate grated
- 1 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
- 150 grams candied peel
- 2 tablespoons marmalade (plus extra to brush on your pastry)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 2 eggs lightly beaten (plus 1 egg yolk to brush on your pastry)
- Decoration:
- Toasted flaked almonds
- 100 grams melted chocolate (dark or milk)
Instructions
- Firstly, prepare your pastry. Sift flour and add in sugar.
- Add in the butter and rub into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
- Mix in the lemon zest and egg yolks.
- Bind together with a little water to form a dough.
- Leave to rest while you prepare your filling.
- Mix all the filling ingredients together until well combined.
- Preheat oven to 180oC.
- Cut the pastry in half and roll each piece out onto a floured surface. Both thin pieces of pastry should be able to fit into 2 small pie dishes. If using one larger pie dish then roll all your pastry thin enough to fit the larger dish.
- Place each piece of pastry into your dishes.
- Brush a little marmalade on each piece of pastry.
- Add in half of the filling into each pie.
- Brush the edges of your pastry with egg yolk.
- Place in the oven for 30/35 minutes or until the edges of the pastry are golden brown.
- Decorate your pie with melted chocolate (either drizzle over your filling or spread evenly on top) and finally decorate with toasted almond flakes.
- Serve.