Chocolate - Raspberry Tarts

You might have thought, when voting for the chocolate - raspberry tarts, that this would be a chocolate cream with raspberries served in a regular tart. But actually, it’s a chocolate tart with white chocolate & mascarpone filling, topped with raspberries. The fact that these tarts have a different twist to them is what persuaded me to place them in the weekly poll. I’ve never eaten or made a chocolate tart pastry, so that was fun to try out. The filling was rather lovely and accompanied the raspberries very well. The chocolate pastry, while fragile, wasn’t that difficult to work with. It cracks easily, but then again, you can patch it up. Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Chocolate - Raspberry Tarts recipe: Nigella Lawson - How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Ingredients for tarts:
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour (175g)
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (30g)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (30g)
- ¼ teaspoons salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter (12g)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon ice water

Ingredients for filling:
- 2 ounces white chocolate (50g)
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons mascarpone (250g)
- ⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon heavy cream (100ml)
- approximately 2 pints raspberries (500g)

Instructions:
- Your best bet is to make the pastry in a food processor, so put the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt into the bowl and pulse to blend. Cut the butter into small pieces and pulse with the flour mixture until it looks crumbly. Beat the yolk and iced water together and add, down the funnel, to bind the pastry. When it starts to clump together, turn it out of the processor and work it together with your hands into two discs. Wrap them in plastic wrap and rest the pastry in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Roll out one of the dough discs; it will be quite a dry pastry because of the cocoa, so don't be too heavy-handed with the flour on your rolling surface. Then, using a tart pan as a guide, cut at least 3 rough squares or circles slightly bigger than the pan. Ease the pastry squares into the tins - don't worry if they break, just patch them as best you can - and cut off the excess pastry. Do this with all 6 pans, and then freeze them for about 30 minutes or until they feel frozen. While the pastry's in the freezer, turn on the oven to 350°F (180°C), and slip in a baking sheet to heat up at the same time.
- Put the tartlets straight into the oven on the baking sheet, and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the pastry feels cooked and dry. The freezing plus the fact that the individual area is small means that they shouldn't puff up, which in turn means we're doing without the beans and all that blind-baking palaver. While the pastry's cooking, you might melt the chocolate for the filling, either in the microwave or in a double boiler.


Instead of regular sugar, I used vanilla - bourbon sugar; quite rich - I loved it!

The only bump I ran into was getting the fragile chocolate tarts out of their pans. My solution: eat them straight out of the tins! I’m really not sophisticated enough to be embarrassed about this.

On a different note:
Debby Lee from Inspired Design has given me the Sunshine Award!
Merci Beaucoup Debby!

I proudly pass this award on to 3 other blogs:
♥ Cupcake Corner
♥ Snooky Doodle Cakes
♥ The romantic query letter and the happy-ever-after

Please visit Debby's blog & these other treasures!