CHOCOLATE TARTLETS

AvatarCaxton magazines staffBakingRecipes

Linda Lipschitz, owner of Belle’s Patisserie (bellespatisserie.co.za), shares her recipes for a fabulous high tea

INGREDIENTS

For the sweet pastry cases:

  • 200g cake flour
  • 60g castor sugar
  • 120g butter, unsalted
  • 1 egg yolk
  • half an egg

For the chocolate ganache:

  • 200ml cream
  • 20ml liquid glucose (available at pharmacies)
  • 10g butter, unsalted
  • 200g Belgian Dark Chocolate

To serve:

  • chocolate shards and flaked almonds

METHOD

To make the sweet pastry cases: place the flour, sugar and butter into a mixing bowl and using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour mixture. Add the egg yolk and the half egg and mix everything together until combined. Wrap the pastry in clingwrap and chill for an hour.
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until about a half a centimetre thick and use it to line 4 x 8cm greased tartlet tins. Bake the pastry cases at 180°C for 12–15 minutes, until a nice golden colour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
To make the chocolate ganache: boil the cream, liquid glucose and butter together in a saucepan, then remove from the stove and stir in the chocolate. Mix well until it is smooth and shiny. Cover and store in the fridge until firm.
To serve: fit your piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe the ganache evenly into the sweet pastry cases. Decorate the tartlets with the chocolate shards and almonds.
This recipe makes 4 tartlets.