Chocolate Custard Mini Tarts with Raspberry Caramel
Easy
Looking spooktacular, these mini tarts aren’t just for Halloween. You can swap the pastry pumpkins for hearts or flowers, or any other shape you like! The filling is a smooth milk chocolate pastry cream, or custard, and then topped with a sweet but slightly tart caramel flavoured and coloured with real raspberries. There are three elements to this dessert, and although it may look like a long and complicated recipe, each part is simple to make. But, we have included little “cheats” for the chocolate custard and caramel at the end of their instructions if you’re short on time or just looking for a quicker way to whip up batch.
PREP IN
60 MIN
COOK IN
20 MIN
SERVE
8
Chocolate Custard Mini Tarts with Raspberry Caramel
Easy
PREP IN
60 MIN
COOK IN
20 MIN
SERVE
8
Introduction
Looking spooktacular, these mini tarts aren’t just for Halloween. You can swap the pastry pumpkins for hearts or flowers, or any other shape you like! The filling is a smooth milk chocolate pastry cream, or custard, and then topped with a sweet but slightly tart caramel flavoured and coloured wit
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Ingredients
- 85g unsalted butter, room temp
- 85g caster sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- 190g plain flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- 250g raspberries
- Squeeze of lemon
- 225g caster sugar
- 60ml water
- +- 75ml double cream
- 60g unsalted butter
- Pinch of salt
- 315ml milk
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 3 egg yolks
- 50g caster sugar
- 20g cornflour
- 15g butter
- 100g milk chocolate, melted
FOR THE PASTRY:
FOR THE RASPBERRY CARAMEL:
FOR THE CHOCOLATE PASTRY CREAM:
Method
- 1. To make the pastry, combine butter and sugar in a medium sized bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamed together. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and mix to a smooth paste. Mix in the flour and salt with a wooden spoon until it comes together to form a ball of dough. Tip out onto a piece of parchment paper and lightly knead just until dough is smooth and uniform in colour.
- 2. Flatten the dough into a thick disc and wrap in the parchment paper. Leave to chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- 3. While dough is chilling, make the raspberry caramel. Place raspberries in a small saucepan with a squeeze of lemon and lightly mash them with a fork. Cook over medium heat, occasionally stirring and mashing, until raspberries release their juices.
- 4. Place a sieve over a bowl and pass the cooked raspberries through it to remove the seeds, use the back of a spoon to press all the juice from the pulp.
- 5. Discard the seeds and pulp then return the juice to the saucepan. Simmer over medium heat until juice has thickened slightly to the consistency of double cream. Pour the raspberry juice into a small jug then add enough of the double cream so that you have a total of 125ml.
- 6. Combine sugar and water in a medium sized saucepan and place over medium heat, stir together until sugar has mostly dissolved. Raise temperature to medium high and leave to come to a boil, do not stir.
- 7. Leave to cook until syrup starts to turn an amber colour then remove from heat and swirl caramel around in the saucepan. Caramel will continue to cook from the residual heat, but if it does not become a rich amber colour, return to heat for about 5 seconds, then remove from heat and swirl to mix. Repeat until the colour of honey.
- 8. Off the heat, immediately add the raspberry and cream mixture, then stir vigorously to combine. Caramel will rapidly bubble up, but keep stirring until it has stopped bubbling. Add the butter and pinch of salt and mix until butter has completely melted. Pour into a heat safe bowl and leave to cool to room temperature.
- 9. Cheat: Follow the instructions to make the raspberry purée, then add this to warmed store-bought thick caramel. The final consistency will be thinner than making it yourself, but it should still taste good!
- 10. For the chocolate pastry cream, heat the milk and vanilla in a medium sized saucepan over medium high heat just until it starts to bubble, remove from heat.
- 11. In a small bowl, mix together the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour with a whisk to form a paste.
- 12. While still whisking, pour a splash of the scalded milk into the egg mixture, once mixed in, add another splash of hot milk, mixing until smooth.
- 13. Return the remaining saucepan of milk to the stove over medium heat and pour the egg mixture back into it, stirring with a whisk as you pour.
- 14. Swap the whisk for a spatula or spoon, and continue cooking, while stirring, until the custard thickens to a pudding texture. Remove from heat and stir in the butter and melted chocolate. Tip: If you’re worried there may be lumps in your pastry cream, pass it through a sieve before adding the butter and chocolate.
- 15. Pour into a heat proof bowl and press a piece of clingfilm against the surface of the custard so that it doesn’t form a skin while cooling.
- 16. Cheat: Use instant custard powder to make a custard following the instructions on the container, but using a little less milk so that your custard is a thick pudding texture, then stir in melted chocolate.
- 17. To make the tart shells, roll out the chilled dough between two sheets of parchment paper with a rolling pin until pastry is about 5mm thick.
- 18. Use a sharp knife to cut out rough rounds of the pastry large enough to line 9cm (3.5 inch) tart tins. Gently press each piece of pastry into the tart tins to line them. Use a sharp knife to trim away the excess from the top of the tins.
- 19. Bring the scraps of pastry together then re-roll and cut out pieces, as needed, to line 8 tart tins in total. Place the unbaked tart tins in the freezer.
- 20. With the last of the pastry scraps, re-roll them and use cookie cutters to stamp out whatever shapes you’ll be using to decorate the tarts, you’ll need 8 in total, but a few extras are handy in case any of them break before decorating. Place these shapes on a small baking tray lined with parchment paper and place them in the freezer. Leave pastry to chill for at least 30 minutes.
- 21. While pastry is chilling, pre-heat oven to 190°C / 170°C fan assisted/ gas 5.
- 22. To bake the pastry shells, arrange them on large baking trays then line each unbaked tart shell with small squares of well-scrunched parchment paper then fill with baking beads or dried beans. Blind bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes along with the stamped-out pastry shapes.
- 23. Remove the pastry shapes and leave to cool, then carefully remove the baking bean parcels from the tart shells and return par-baked shells to the oven, continue baking until pastry is a golden brown, 7-10 minutes. Leave to cool on wire rack.
- 24. To assemble the tarts, remove the clingfilm from the pastry cream and give a good whisk to loosen up. Pipe or spoon pastry cream into tart shells (each should get roughly 100g) then smooth the tops with the back of a spoon or small palette knife.
- 25. If caramel has thickened a bit too much and isn’t a pourable consistency, pop it in the microwave for a few seconds, stirring between short blasts, just until it can be poured but isn’t hot.
- 26. Pour caramel on top of the pastry cream, leave it to spread and level. Each tart should get about 40-45g of caramel.
- 27. Place the tarts in the fridge or freezer to firm up a little bit, then finally, top each one with a pastry pumpkin or any other shapes you have made. Remove from tart tins before serving.
- 28. Store in an airtight container in the fridge, but best eaten after sitting out for about 10 minutes to lose the chill. Best eaten in 2-3 days.
