Salted caramel and chocolate tart recipe
If any one flavour has dominated the last few years, it has to be salted caramel. You could quite easily use Dulce de Leche in this, but the caramel gives such satisfaction.
This recipe is one based on a chocolate I produced at WorldSkills Japan 2007 paired with whiskey macerated pears. You could easily add salted nuts to the caramel, to give you a "Snickers" feel, but I like to caramelise mine and present them on top with chocolate discs.
Ingredients
- 1 x batch of shop-bought sweet pastry
- 25 g dark chocolate, melted slowly in the microwave
- 125 g sugar
- 75 ml hot whipping cream
- 1 vanilla pod, scraped out
- 15 g butter
- 2 g salt
- 150 ml whipping cream
- 25 g butter
- 1 pinch salt
- 275 g dark chocolate
- 1 x batch of shop-bought sweet pastry
- 0.9 oz dark chocolate, melted slowly in the microwave
- 4.4 oz sugar
- 2.6 fl oz hot whipping cream
- 1 vanilla pod, scraped out
- 0.5 oz butter
- 0.1 oz salt
- 5.3 fl oz whipping cream
- 0.9 oz butter
- 1 pinch salt
- 9.7 oz dark chocolate
- 1 x batch of shop-bought sweet pastry
- 0.9 oz dark chocolate, melted slowly in the microwave
- 4.4 oz sugar
- 0.3 cup hot whipping cream
- 1 vanilla pod, scraped out
- 0.5 oz butter
- 0.1 oz salt
- 0.6 cup whipping cream
- 0.9 oz butter
- 1 pinch salt
- 9.7 oz dark chocolate
- 50 g pistachios
- 50 g almonds
- 50 g hazelnuts
- 3 x 100g icing sugar
- 1.8 oz pistachios
- 1.8 oz almonds
- 1.8 oz hazelnuts
- 3 x 100g icing sugar
- 1.8 oz pistachios
- 1.8 oz almonds
- 1.8 oz hazelnuts
- 3 x 100g icing sugar
Details
- Cuisine: French
- Recipe Type: Dessert
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 30 mins
- Cooking Time: 30 mins
- Serves: 6
Step-by-step
- Roll out the shop-bought pastry to about a pound coin thickness and line 6 individual fluted tartlet tins.
- Put the tarts on a baking sheet and place some greaseproof paper inside each one. Tip in some flour or baking beans to stop the pastry from rising when blind baking.
- Bake in a 180C oven for approx 10-15 minutes.
- Remove the greaseproof paper and return to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes at a temperature of 160C, just to cook out the base.
- Once cooked and cooled, brush with dark chocolate to insure the pastry doesn't go soggy. This will also give you another chocolate hit. To make the caramel, place the sugar into a pan over a low heat.
- Pour the cream into a jug, and then heat to boiling point in the microwave.
- The sugar will caramelise around the edges; don't be tempted to stir just yet as the sugar will crystallise.
- Once the sugar becomes fully golden, you can stir it, breaking down any little bits of sugar left.
- You should then be confronted with caramel - a loose golden syrup.
- In little stages, over a low heat still, slowly and carefully, stir in the cream. The cream and caramel will combust and bubble up; don't be scared by this, it's good. Once the cream has been stirred in, add another batch and continue until all the cream has been put in.
- Keep over the heat to cook out a little and add the butter and the salt. Remove from the heat and keep stirring until all the butter has melted in.
- Leave to cool for 10 minutes before pouring the caramel into the cooled tart case. It should reach just under a half of the tart case. Leave this to set and form a skin before topping with the ganache.
- To make the ganache place the cream, butter and salt into a pan and slowly bring to the boil.
- Place the dark chocolate in a bowl and leave until needed. Once the creams have boiled pour over the two chocolates and leave to stand for 1 minute.
- Stirring from the centre outwards, mix the cream and chocolate together making a ganache.
- If the ganache begins to split add a dash of cold milk - that should bring it back. Pour it straight onto the set caramel and then leave this to set overnight - we don't want this ganache to be set too hard, hence why we aren't putting it in the fridge.
- To make the caramelised nuts – place the nuts in batches and icing sugar into a pan and continually stir over the heat until the sugar crystallises around the nuts – add a pinch of salt and then leave to cool. Place these on top of the ganache before it has fully set.
- To make the chocolate shards place 100g dark chocolate into a microwaveable bowl and heat gently in 30 second bursts to temper the chocolate - this will ensure crisp, shiny chocolate shards. Once the chocolate has nearly melted, continue to stir until the chocolate has fully melted. Spread thinly onto some greaseproof paper or acetate (which you can buy online or from stationery stores) and leave to set.
- To serve, break the chocolate into shards and stick into the ganache.
Recipe taken from Patisserie at Home/Photograph Jonathan Gregson
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