Combine butter & sugar in food processor. Add salt, vanilla & cocoa. Process 1 minute. Add flour. Processuntil just blended. Between 2 sheets of waxed paper, roll out mixture into an 11" disk. Refrigerate several hours. (I think this is unnecessary. Would be better to just press into the springform pan.) Press into a 10" springform pan & prick bottom of shell with a fork. Bake in a preheated 375° oven for 5 minutes or until pastry is dry. Cool.
Heat chocolate & whipping cream over low heat until smooth. Pour chocolate cream mixture through a wire-meshed strainer into cooled tart shell. Refrigerate at leat 3 hours.
To serve: lay a stencil over the center of tart. Using a fine strainer, sift remaining cocoa over top. (I used powdered sugar because the cocoa wouldn't show against the dark chocolate.) Left off stencil to reveal chocolate pattern. Unmold & remove from pan.~~

The lemon curd tart below is really the best I've ever made. I didn't put the curd over the tart shell until I was ready to serve so the crust stayed crisp. However, the one piece left over this AM was still really good. It's not difficult to make, either.

The Lemon Curd Tart is very similar to the recipe that I posted recently for Shortbread Tarts with Lemon Filling. The combination of the shortbread crust with the tart lemon filling is wonderful.

Home Cookin 4.9 Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table

Shortbread Tarts with Lemon Filling
===================================
Source: Appeal Magazine

Shortbread crust

1 cup butter softened
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch

Filling

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs well beaten
1/2 cups butter at room temperature
. Preheat oven to 325°F. Combine shortbread ingredients in the bowl of an
electric mixer. Mix to form dough. Divide dough into 24 pieces. Pat each
portion of dough into a 1 1/2" (4 cm) tart tin, using your fingers to shape
it into a shell. Prick the bottom of each tart with a fork. Bake 10
minutes and then prick bottoms again as the shells puff up. Bake an
additional 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow tarts to cool on a wire
rack before filling.

To prepare lemon filling, combine juice and zest in a double boiler. Whisk
in sugar, eggs and butter, blending well. Place over gently boiling water
and whisk constantly until mixture thickens. Cool before using to fill tart
shells. Lemon filling can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the
refrigerator.

(Note: I did not cook using a double boiler. I added the juice, zest,
sugar and butter to the pot and brought to a boil. Then I beat the eggs
and added some of the hot mixture to the eggs to temper before adding this
egg mixture to the pan. I continued to stir over low heat until the mixture
thickened.)

Ann