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

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50 minutes + 1h resting time

40 minutes + until cold

4 tartlets

Dublin Coddle

Last weekend, we visited Bord Bia's Bloom festival in the Phoenix Park, here in Dublin (check out our Instagram & Facebook for pictures). This is mainly a showcase of some amazing garden exhibits but over the years it has grown and now it boasts an impressive selection of flowers, gardening equipment, traditional arts & crafts, and more. The main attraction for us, of course, was the large Food Village! There were dozens of stalls selling and sampling a multitude of amazing food and drink from around the country - we were definitely in our element. 

As we were exploring all the wonderful foods, we spotted a butcher selling some lovely pork sausages and bacon rashers. The sausages had 82% pork content and the bacon looked great. After trying a free sample (yum!) we were immediately inspired and decided that this week we would make a Coddle! Although, it's not really a summer dish - it's a real comfort food, ideal for a cold, winter-y evening - we still wanted to use these delicious sausages and rashers. We gathered up some fresh vegetables from various other stalls to complete the recipe. 

Coddle, also know as Dublin Coddle, is a traditional Irish dish that was typically made to get rid of leftovers. It was generally eaten more regularly in the capital than the rest of the country. Like most traditional dishes, there's no fixed recipe and everyone has their own way of making it. The basic ingredients are pork sausages, bacon rashers, potato and onion, all cooked together in a broth. We'll be adding a few more ingredients to this recipe than the traditional but I'm basing it on one I received from my Dad.

For this we'll be using a leek and potato soup as the broth. Some people use vegetable stock, but I like the extra flavour the soup adds to the dish. We'll be making our own soup in this recipe, but you can use any shop bought vegetable soup if you prefer for convenience. You'll need enough to make 1.5 litres of soup. It is also not necessary to brown the sausages and bacon, this is up to your own personal preference. We think they look and taste a little better when browned, so that's what we'll do here. 

This hearty dish goes very well with some fresh bread, slathered with real butter to slop up the last few mouthfuls.

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Soup: 10 minutes Coddle: 10 minutes

Soup: 20 minutes Coddle : 50 minutes

6

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 !

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45 minutes

30 minutes

8 slices