The end of the year is almost here.
Hold on. What?
Yep. The year’s almost over.
Where did it go? Seriously though.
It feels like yesterday that it was 2012. That I was still at pastry school. That I was sitting my final university exams. That I was single. That my blog was still a wordpress.com (gosh, remember that?!).
How things have changed. I’ve graduated from both pastry school and university. I have myself my Mr Man. And I self host this little blog (what does that mean again? Sometimes I’m not even sure. The rest of the time, I’m just terrified this site will crash/that I’ll break it somehow).
Now I work full time as a pastry chef. Full time, people. No more student life for me. That’s something that’s taken some getting used to. It kind of means that I’m an adult now. Well, almost.
It also means that hardly have time to bake at home anymore, and when I do, it’s gotta be pretty quick and simple.
I made these for my best friend’s birthday recently, and they’re a new favourite of mine. I love chocolate and hazelnuts together, and these bake up like little chocolate fondants in a tart shell.
And the recipe leaves you with a little extra filling, so just bake them up in little ramekins and enjoy! X
- FOR THE PASTRY:
- 90g unsalted butter (3 oz)
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 cup flour (150g)
- FOR THE FILLING:
- 170g dark chocolate, chopped (6 oz)
- 115g unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
- ¼ cup Frangelico, or freshly brewed coffee
- ⅔ cup sugar (135g)
- 3 eggs
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 cup lightly toasted hazelnuts (with skins rubbed off)
- To make the tart pastry, preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F) and get out a muffin pan.
- Place the butter, water, oil, sugar and salt in an overproof bowl.
- Put the bowl in the oven for about 15 minutes, until the butter is melted, bubbling, and just beginning to brown around the edges.
- Carefully remove the bowl from the oven and dump in the flour. Stir quickly, until the dough comes together and pulls away from the side of the dish.
- Put a tablespoon of dough into one muffin hole, and press it into the base and up the sides using your fingers. Repeat until all the dough has been used.
- Prick the dough with a fork once or twice.
- Bake for 8 - 12 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown all over.
- Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile, reduce the oven temperature to 160 C (325 F) and make the filling.
- Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set aside.
- Put the butter, hazelnut liquor (or coffee) and half the sugar (1/3 cup) in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Stir until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves, then pour over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts.
- Using an electric mixer, whip the eggs, half the sugar (1/3 cup) and salt until the mixture is thick, pale, and falls off the whisk in a ribbon.
- Whisk a third of the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, then fold the rest in gently, until combined.
- Pour the filling into the tart shells until it almost reaches the top.
- Scatter the hazelnuts over the tarts.
- Bake for 7 - 10 minutes, until the filling loses its shine. The original recipe states the filling should not soufflé.
- Allow to cool completely before serving. Makes 12 tarts.
- Happy baking!
- NOTE: When making the tart at work, I bake with a cold filling from the fridge and the tarts turn out differently - covered in hazelnuts. At home I baked these with fresh, runny filling, and found that the hazelnuts sunk. You may want to refrigerate your filled tarts for an hour or so before topping with hazelnuts and baking.
Tart dough adapted from David Leibovitz.
Tart filling adapted from Tartine.