Chocolate ganache tartelettes with strawberries

When it comes for asking help , good friends in the social media can be amazing.  The other day I couldn’t decide if I should buy tartlet molds/pans with loose bottoms and I asked in twitter what friends would suggest. Lovely Patricia ( who also helped me with a question concerning the pie weights, thank you dear!  Check out her blog , it is mouthwatering! ) and old friend VH-san came to my rescue =).

So now I present you the first baking in my brand new (or not so new anymore ^_^ )  loose bottoms tartlet pans!

I decided for something simple..  and cheering up as chocolate  ( not to get depressed… XD) . The original idea was to use raspberries but Summer is gone from this cold land and the only local berry I found was strawberry.

Chocolate ganache tartelette with strawberries

Pastry or Pâte Sucrée adapted from this book

Ganache filling adapted from here

Yield 6  ∅10 cm tartelettes

Pâte Sucrée

• 110 g of cold unsalted butter chopped
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar ( I used my own vanilla sugar )
• 1 egg, beaten

Sift the flour, sugar and salt through a sieve into a large bowl. Rub together the butter and the flour mixture with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Pour the beaten egg and work the dough till it starts holding together. Add cold water if necessary ( I didn’t need ). Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 30 min.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Roll out the dough and line 6 ∅10 cm tartlet molds. You will need to bake the pastry without the filling ( “blind-baking” ). Prick the bottom of tartlets with a fork, line with parchment paper and fill it with pie weights ( I used dried green peas ). Take to oven and bake for about 10 minutes till the crust is set ( rim is golden). Remove the paper and weights and bake for further 5 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

Filling:

1 basket fresh strawberries (250 g ) , rinsed, stem end cut flat

Chocolate Ganache

• 200 ml double cream ( kuohukerma )
• 180 g dark chocolate ( I used 100g Valrhona Manjari 64% and 80g of “normal” 70% dark chocolate)
• 20 g unsalted butter

Melt the chocolate, heat the cream in a small pan and pour over the chocolate. Stir the ingredients together using a spatula till they are evenly combined, beating to get a smooth and glossy mixture. Add the butter.

To assemble the tartlets:

Pour the chocolate ganache into the baked shells  and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes (or until almost firm) . Place the strawberries on top of each tart and serve. If you want to keep the ready tartelettes in the fridge for a while , I suggest to glaze the strawberries with melted jam to keep them fresh and moist.

My notes about the recipe:

The tartelettes became very good but I think they had too strong chocolate taste. I believe it would work better if making very tiny bite-size tartelettes.  Anyways, I could definitely make these again , substituting half the amount of dark chocolate for milk chocolate to smooth the taste a bit :).

If using fresh raspberries instead of strawberries, try mixing a bit of raspberry jam in the ganache to give a flavor boost to the chocolate mix.

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