Chocolate & Raspberry Tartlets

Link to printable version

It has been such a warm and relatively sunny summer in Dublin this year... So sunny that we were too lazy to cook ! Sorry about that, but we're still going to enjoy of bit more time off since we're visiting family in France soon. Hopefully, we'll be back with lots of delicious family recipes !

Today we're doing a set of 4 Chocolate & Raspberry mini tartlets. Best enjoyed cold, this is another summer time bakery classic. The rich chocolate filling can go with anything on top : strawberries, cherries, bananas, etc... but we settled on raspberries. Feel free to swap the milk chocolate for dark chocolate (in this case, add 50g of sugar instead of 10g).

As usual, we're making the shortcrust from scratch but you can use a pre-made shortcrust, just don't forget to blind bake them too. The shortcrust is only baked once for this recipe so ensure it is fully baked before filling the tartlets. We're also giving the dimension of our tartlet tins below, but you'll probably end up with shortcrust & filling leftover, so don't worry too much if yours are deeper or bit bigger.

Oh and also, this time we made a printable version. We don't have any printer home, but we hope it can come in handy for some of you ;-) Link to printable version

---

50 minutes + 1h resting time

40 minutes + until cold

4 tartlets

Apple tart - Tarte aux pommes

It was quite sunny in Dublin last week-end, so we decided to go to the food market to grab some fresh fruit. We saw some organic apples looking perfectly red and ripe, so we couldn't resist making an apple tart. 

A classic among classics, the apple tart is as popular in France as it is in Ireland, although the way we enjoy it isn't quite the same. Indeed, while in Ireland we mostly eat apple pies, made with a top & bottom crust filled with apples, in France we mostly have them presented as a tarts, filled with an applesauce and decorated with an apple rosette.

You can really use any variety of apples sold in supermarkets, depending on your taste. Here, we'll be using Elstar apples, a sweet and crispy variety, perfect for this tart. For the shortcrust, we included 25 grams of ground almonds because it complements the filling very nicely, but this is optional and you can, of course, do a normal sweet shortcrust instead.

We've tried to make this tart as close as the ones you can get in French bakeries. Ideally, I would have chosen a different way of glazing because my apricot jam was actually an apricot conserve with bits. That's the reason my glazing is not as glossy and uniform as the ones in bakeries - but it still tastes just as delicious.

It's fresh, it's fruity, and it's summer-y !

---

45 minutes

30 minutes

8 slices

Pear tart "Bourdaloue"

Today we're making another French pastry classic : the Tarte Bourdaloue, a sweet shortcrust tart filled with a combination of almond cream and poached pear.

This popular dessert was named after the street "Rue Bourdaloue" in the 9th arrondissement of Paris which, in turn, has been named after Louis Bourdaloue, a French Jesuit of the 17th century. Bourdaloue was renowned for the quality of his sermon and especially their extreme length, allegedly testing the limits of his devout ladies bladders.

According to the "Dictionnaire universel de cuisine pratique" by Joseph Favre, released in 1905, the first version of this tart (then, a cake) was invented by the baker Mr Fasquelle, in his bakery on Rue Bourdaloue in the mid-19th century, and doesn't include fruit. Other sources indicate Mr Lesserteur, or Mr Coquelin as original inventors, all of them located on the same street.

This recipe is actually much easier than it seems, and is one of our favourite tarts.  We decided to make it from scratch, but note that you can use pre-made shortcrust base and halved tin pears instead of poaching them yourself. 

---

30 minutes + 24h resting time

30 minutes

8 slices