These chocolate ganache tarts are the perfect treat to make when you fancy a sweet treat but don’t have all the time in the world.
They are also perfect to make for Valentines day, chocolate doesn’t care whether you’re single to taken. You have a rich, buttery pastry case (using my trusty shortcrust pastry recipe) and generously filled with a silky smooth dark chocolate ganache… Even if you’re not a dark chocolate fan, you’ll like these.
Whether or not you have someone to celebrate Valentine’s Day with this year, these tarts are the perfect sweet treat to make and enjoy, whether on its own or with some whipped cream, ice cream or fresh fruit – the choices are endless.
To make these tarts even better, use a good quality dark chocolate. That’s why I’m using the Cocoarunners 63% dark chocolate, which compliments this recipe just perfectly. Check out the rest of the range offered by Cocoarunners – cocoa powder, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, unsweetened, cocoa nibs and make your own chocolate bar set.
If these sound like something you’d like, give them a try. You only need minimal ingredients, a little times and effort and you’ll have some impressive treats to share (or not, I can’t tell you what to do).
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
1x shortcrust pastry (you’ll only need half for this recipe but the pastry freezes perfectly).
Chocolate ganache filling:
150ml double cream.
17ml liquid glucose.
135g dark chocolate.
55g butter, at room temperature.
Method:
Before you get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, making your shortcrust pastry and get any equipment you may need, such as a saucepan and rolling pin ready. Don’t forget to preheat your oven to 200˚c/390˚f.
As mentioned above, you should have made the pastry and allowed it 1 hour to chill in the fridge before you intend on using it (this can be made up to 3 days in advance, if needed). You can the. go ahead and flour your work surface with a good amount of flour, then place the pastry on top and dust with a small amount of flour.
Using a rolling pin, roll the pastry out until you have around the same thickness of a pound coin, so relatively thin. Once you have achieved this, you can then cut the pastry into 4 roughly equal pieces.
Take a piece of the pastry and place into one of your tartlet cases and just press it into place, ensuring all the crevices have been reached. Then you can go ahead and trim away the excess pastry – you don’t need to throw this away, you can either re-roll it once more or roll it back up and freeze it). Repeat this with the remaining pastry.
Using a small piece of scrunched up parchment paper, place it into the pastry case and press into place, then fill right to the top with baking beans, repeating the process with the remainder of your cases.
Now you’ll want to blind bake the pastry cases, so place them into your preheated oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, the edges should look a little ‘puffy’, this is the best way to explain it. Remove the baking beans and parchment paper – being careful as the baking beans will be very hot and would burn you.
Return to the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until the pastry cases are perfectly golden brown all over and the bottom of the tart is baked, nobody likes a soggy bottom, do they.
Once baked, allow to completely cool down before you intend on using them.
Whenever you’re ready and the pastry cases have been made, you can go ahead and make the chocolate ganache filling.
Into a saucepan, place the double cream and liquid glucose, place on the hob over a medium-high heat. Allow the mixture to reach almost a boil, before removing it from the heat.
Take the cream mixture and pour it over the dark chocolate and allow it to sit for around 1-2 minutes, then stir slowly but steadily and as you do, you will notice that the process of emulsification has taken place and you should have a rich and smooth looking chocolate ganache – this is what you’re looking for.
Before you go ahead and add the ganache into the baked pastry cases, you will want to add your room temperature butter and just mix that until its fully incorporated, this may take a couple of minutes but it will further enrich the ganache and help make it smoother, richer and tastier.
Grab the baked pastry cases and then fill them with the ganache. You will want to fill them all with the same amount so feel free to weigh how much ganache goes into each case or like me, you can just eyeball it – this works just as well.
Then place these into the fridge until they have firmed up and that’s all… They’re really that simple. When it comes to serving these, you can enjoy them on their own or with some lightly whipped cream, ice cream or fresh fruit (strawberries and dark chocolate compliment each other so well).
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.
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