Decadent Tartlets

July 04, 2015

Decadent Tartlets

I need to apologise to you all for the late post. Also for keeping away this heavenly goodness from you for so long. I made these personal sized tartlets about a month back and I'm just getting around to write about them.

My apologies, really!! A friend never keeps a source of happiness away from other friends. I promise to never repeat the mistake again ever. I mean, the goodness of these tarts is something that you have to experience yourself. The crisp buttery pastry filled with toppings of your choice are absolutely divine. They really melt in your mouth. These two-bite pieces are absolutely irresistible. The best part is that the tart shells stay for a week in the fridge. Make them ahead of any occasion and they are ready when you need them!

Taking you back when I was making them. The monsoon was just beginning here in India. The climate was terribly hot n clammy. Really not the best time to be working in a kitchen. I try and stay away from cooking as much as possible during these months. But when the urge strikes, you gotta answer that call. And I was really really really craving something sweet. Thats a rare thing in my world. To satiate those crazy tastebuds of mine, I went all out in the kitchen. And thats where these sweet little babies came into being. The melange of two different flours give them a very unique texture.

I filled these up with different fillings. I used Lemon curd and mangoes to fill up one, Dark chocolate ganache for the other and white chocolate for the third one. I know!!! I was being a really bad girl, indulging in such sinful pleasures but omg.... can I make a deal with the devil and keep eating these please..... Is the devil listening?! Hellooo!!!!! You can choose to fill these up with jams, with custard, creamcheese whatever floats your boat.

Lets get started then!!

Serves: 18-20 tartlets (depending on the size of your tartlet pan)

Time taken: 30 mins + cooling time

Complexity: ***

You'll need

For tartlets

1 cup butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup plain flour

3-4 tbsp rice flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of love

Grated dark chocolate, mint, cherries for garnish

Dark chocolate ganache

1 cup dark semisweet chocolate chips

2/3 rd cup cream

1 tbsp butter

White chocolate ganache

1 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup cream

1 tbsp butter

Method

In your food processor or standing mixer, first add in your butter. The butter should be softened before you begin the process but mine wasn't completely there. So just whizzed it in the food processor and broke it to smaller chunks.

Add the sugar to it. Give them a whizz.

Cream the butter and sugar till they look like this.

Add in the egg and vanilla. and whizz till everything looks mixed.

If it looks like its curdling at this point, its okay. Do not be alarmed.

In a separate bowl, add in the two flours. The rice flour gives these tartlets a beautiful crispy crust. Incase you don't have rice flour, just add that amount of plain flour. Also add in the baking powder. Whisk everything till its well combined

Add this to the wet ingredients

Pulse the food processor until you get a coarse crumble-y mixture like this.

On a clean surface take out the mixture out of the food processor

Just press it together with your hands and form a dough. Its should come together quite nicely.

Wrap this up in plastic wrap and cool in the fridge for atleast 30 minutes. This makes it easy to roll out later.

Take the dough out after about 30 mins or an hour, it should be pretty firm now.

Unwrap it and lay it on a piece of parchment paper.

Flatten it out slightly so it becomes more manageable and lay another sheet of parchment paper on it to make the rolling out easier.

Meanwhile, butter your cupcake/ tartet/ mini muffin pan. You can use either of them to make the tartlets. Have your oven pre-heating at 180C or 360F

Roll out the dough as evenly as possible in a large round-ish shape.

It should be about 2 mm thick.

Take a cookie-cutter or a glass. The diameter of this should be bigger than your tart tray. Cut the dough into rounds so that you can pick them up and place them in the moulds. I tried doing this and my dough kept breaking. Maybe it was the humidity that made the dough quite sticky and it would keep cracking.

So what I did was, take the dough and cut it into 15 equal portions roughly 1.5" in diameter. Shaping them into balls I placed them in the baking tray.

Pressing those balls with my thumb, I kept pushing the dough to the sides till it was evenly flattened. This made it so much easier. Also don't worry if the dough cracks a little here and there. Just pinch it back.

I purposely did not flatten out the edges as I wanted these to look rustic and home made. You can even the edges with a knife if you want.

Place the tray in the oven for about 10 minutes to bake.

You will notice that the tartlets puff up like this during baking in about 3-4 minutes.

Take out the tray and poke all the tartlets with a fork so they can settle back down nicely. Let them bake for another 5-7 minutes till the edges turn golden. The tartlets are ready!

Let them cool for a couple minutes before you take them out from the baking pan. Just move your finger along with the tart in a clockwise motion and that should dislodge the tart from the mould and it will come out easily.

Let it cool on a wire rack for another 10 minutes or so before filling them.

Your tarts are ready to be filled!

Melt together the chocolates and cream n butter in a double boiler to make both the chocolate ganache.

The dark chocolate ganache

White chocolate Ganache

I had home made lemon curd which I also used.

For the mango rosettes, peel a mango.

Cut the flesh along one side of the seed.

Slice the mango into thin slices, around 1-2 mm thick.

Take 2 tbsp of lemon curd to fill the tartlet. Take the slices and arange them in a shape of rose. Or to keep it simpler, just dice some mangoes and arrange them like this.

Spoon in dark choc ganache in one tartlet. Make it pretty with some white chocolate, some grated dark chocolate, mint leaves and cherries. Same for the white chocolate tartlets. Allow to cool and set in the refrigerator for 30 mins atleast before eating