I found a recipe in Le Cordon Bleu’s Chocolate Bible, for a Chocolate Tartlet, with a soft chocolate filling and topped with a chocolate ganache. I reproduce the recipe below, or you can find it on Le Corden Bleu website.
I am never entirely successful with my pastry, it always shrinks somewhat, when in the oven, and when it is too late. I realise that one cause is overworking the dough, so I was fastidious in following this recipe and hardly worked the pastry at all. I then chilled it as directed and rolled it out. I actually measured, by weight the amounts needed and kept the remainder in the fridge as I rolled out each piece individually. Having lined the pan i then refrigerated again and then removed the excess pastry. That final step, although part of Le Cordon Bleu’s instruction, for lining a pastry case, was a mistake. As usual, when baking, the pastry shrank. Had I left the excess in place I could have trimmed it after baking.
Anyway, I got the cases baked, even though they were not quite as deep as I wanted them. I should also say that I don’t have the 10cm round tartlet tins mentioned in the recipe. So I used a twelve hole square cake tin. Each hole was 10cm corner to corner, which means not of the same volume as the round ones. I therefore had pastry dough and soft chocolate filling mixture over. No matter, I was able to make some extra tartlets. So instead of 12 round ones I ended up with 15 square ones.
The result is nice, crisp pastry, with a lovely soft chocolate filling and a shiny ganache on top. Not perfect, by any means, but certainly good enough to eat, and enjoy doing so.
Sweet pastry dough:
- 110 g butter
- 110 g powdered sugar
- 45 g ground almonds
- 210 g flour
- 1 large egg (60 g)
- 105 g “couverture” chocolate 70 %
- 60 g butter, softened
- 60 g ground almonds
- 90 g egg whites
- 75 g sugar
- 45 g flour
- 150 g chocolate, chopped
- 150 ml whipping cream
- 70 g sugar
- 60 g butter
- 120 ml water (I didn’t use any water at all)
Sweet pastry dough:
- Rub the butter into the dry ingredients, add the egg and combine. “fraiser” – mix the dough evenly by smearing it with the fleshy part of the palm of the hand.
- Form into a ball and refrigerate approximately 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C.
- Roll out the sweet pastry dough to a thickness of approximately 3 mm and cut disks 12 cm . Line tartlet molds and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Bake the tartlet cases in the preheated oven for approximately 10 minutes.
- Melt chocolate over a bain-marie, remove from the heat and mix in the softened butter. Add the ground almonds.
- Beat egg whites until foamy.
- Gradually add the sugar, beating until the egg whites are smooth, shiny and stiff peaks form.
- Delicately fold in the meringued egg whites, followed by the flour.
- Fill the tartlet shells to 2/3 and bake for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Put the chocolate in a bowl.
- Heat the whipping cream, butter and sugar, pour onto the chocolate and add a little water to obtain a smooth consistency.
- Coat each tartlet with ganache glaze.