Millionaires' marbled chocolate tart

The key to creating this sumptuous and gooey treat for Mother’s Day, in all honesty, is to get up extra early in the morning to cook it. Say about 4 o’clock. And yes, I know what you are thinking, that is a ridiculous time to get up on a Sunday morning. Especially since many Mums can look forward to a lie-in on that heralded day of the year. ‘What’s the rush?’ I hear you say. There should be plenty of time to bake this before delivering a well deserved cup of tea in bed.

However, with this tart, there is always the inherent danger of not having any dessert to present in the afternoon. Because once the kids get whiff of this, you are doomed. After bombing down the stairs, ignoring desperate pleas for quiet, not only will they want to help you make this tart, they will also want dibs on the chocolate bowl. To clean and lick with eager fingers. They will want to get their hands on the bowl covered in a veneer of white chocolate too. Not forgetting the caramel bowl and quite naturally, they will want eat up the scraps of delicate sweet shortcrust. Scraps that have been shaved off after blind baking.

This is all fine. It’s a truly organic way of cleaning up and eliminating food waste. But soon they will start eying up the final product. Wafting glorious smells of cocoa and butter throughout the kitchen, that tart will sit there, gently cooling down. And they will look at you. And you will look back at them. And then you will all look at the tart. And before you know it, it will be sliced and diced up and demolished in seconds. Time will blur in a frenzy of gulps, slurps and smacks of the lips. And when it’s done, you will all turn, to find Mum standing in the doorway, full of reproach and scorn. You won’t even have time to wipe your collective, chocolatey, grubby little guilty mouths to hide the evidence.

No, best you get up early to make this Millionaire’s marbled chocolate tart and, even if you don’t have children, it’s going to be struggle to make sure it hits the table later in the day. All unscathed and complete.