Salted Caramel Chocolate Tarts

Salted Caramel Chocolate Tart

Donna Hay is to blame for this recipe and the calories ingested.  I made these tarts as an alternative Christmas Day dessert for those family members not fussed on the traditional Pudding.  I know!! Such people exist - in my family!! So, after months of preparation and love using my witch's cauldron to produce Christmas Puddings to yearn for - I then turn around and create extra little some-things to tempt the darlings' tastebuds. (Cue violin music)

The original recipe states it serves 6 - but these tarts are SO rich and caramelly sweet - I cut them into quarters to serve and I think that next time I would bake them instead  in much smaller tartlet tins.

The tarts have a baked chocolate pastry shell filled with a very, very rich caramel centre, then topped with a thick Chocolate layer that is sprinkled with sea salt flakes (I decorated mine with edible rose petals for a festive touch and added the salt after I took the photo).  They disappeared too quickly for a second photo - sorry!

The selection of this recipe was due to specific challenges about my dessert options:
- special, festive occasion dessert, and wanted it to be served as an option to Christmas Pudding
- needed to be made the day before (or not at all!)
- was being transported in a cold esky for 2 hours so needed to withstand travelling bumps and heat - so creamy, eggy desserts would not be suitable. Packing the tartlets, still protected inside their tins, into individual lidded plastic boxes kept them intact and they survived the journey perfectly.

So although my pastry making resembled a playdough activity, the filling covered the untidy tartshells and was a great success!   

Serves 6   -   but I think 8 - 10 smaller tartlet tins would be better 

Time:               5  1/2  - 6 hours including minimum 4 hours pastry resting and cooling times.
          Pastry:  15 min prep, 1 hour rest, 15 min covering tins, 30 min rest, 20 min bake, 30min cool.
          Filling:   10 min prep, 10 min cooling.
          Choc:    10 min melting.   2 hours setting - minimum.    Then 5 mins for final presentation.

Additional Equipment:  
                   6 x 8 cm loose base tart shells      OR    8 - 10 smaller loose base tartlet tins 
                   food processor
                   Non-stick baking paper
                   Rolling pin
                   Blind baking weights      SEE: Notes below
Ingredients

      Pastry shells
1 cup (150g) plain flour - sifted.  PLUS   Extra flour for dusting surface to roll pastry later.
1/2 cup (50g) cocoa - sifted
1/2 cup (80g) icing sugar - sifted
125 gram butter - chopped  (I would reduce this to 120g as my baked shells were a little oily)
3 egg yolks  (Large but not XL size eggs)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon iced water

     Caramel filling
Original recipe stated -  1 cup (250 ml) Dulce de Leche  - thick caramel cooked milk   
- but I needed  2  cups  to fill the 6 tart shells    - SEE: Notes below

     Chocolate Layer
1/2 cup (125ml) pure cream
200 g good quality chocolate - chopped.  Original recipe stated dark but I used quality Milk chocolate
Tiniest, tiniest pinch of sea salt to mix into the chocolate mixture

     Decoration
Pinch of Sea Salt flakes for sprinkling.      Option:  Edible rose petals 

Method

     Pastry

Place the sifted flour, icing sugar and butter in food processor with dough blade and process until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. While motor is still running add the egg yolk, vanilla and chilled water.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently bring together.
  
Donna Hay says to flatten into one disk.    SEE:  Notes Below
Wrap the flattened pastry portions in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Lightly grease your tartlet tins.
Remove pastry portions one at a time from fridge and roll each pastry out between 2 sheets of nonstick baking paper to 4mm thick.  Cut 6 x 12 cm rounds (or equivalent for smaller tins).  This is where mine resembled a kindy playdough project but I managed to make a pastry jigsaw to cover the tin.  (Was still good to eat!)

Trim the edges, prick base with a fork.  Place prepared tins onto an oven tray and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven 180 o C.
Blindbake the pastry shells by lining cases with baking paper and filling with baking weights. SEE Note above.
Keeping tins on an oven tray,  Bake 10 mins, remove weights and paper then bake for a further 8 - 10 mins until cooked through.
Remove from oven and cool completely.

Donna Hay says to remove pastry carefully from tins.  I checked they could be loosened, then returned to tin for ease of handling.

     Filling
       
Divide the Dulce de Leche between the pastry tartlets to fill 3/4 full. Smooth.
Refrigerate 10 minutes.

    Chocolate Layer

Heat cream and melt chocolate and cream over a double boiler.  
(never let water or steam get into the chocolate mix - it will then go grainy and awful)
Option:  microwave in a clean pyrex bowl on ''Low"  for 10 seconds at a time until melted.  
Never microwave chocolate on a high temperature or for more than 10 seconds at a time. Burns easily.
Stir together well, add salt and remove from heat.
Spread mixture over top of each of the caramel filled tarts.  Smooth and refrigerate minimum of 2 hours.

    Decoration

Prior to serving, remove from tartlet tins.  Sprinkle tartlets with dash of salt and /or rose petals.

TIPS AND HINTS

Dulce de Leche.  

Essentially this is what Nanna made when she boiled tins of condensed milk to turn them into thick caramel milky goo.  Many a kitchen had an exploding tin redecorate the walls with caramel blobs.
You can buy the bottles of Dulce de Leche from delis and some cookbooks prefer the brands made from goat's milk, but that is up to your preference.
I used one bottle (1 think it was about 350 ml) of Deli bought Dulce de Leche for half the tartlets and 1 tin of caramelised condensed milk (approx 350 ml) for the remainder to test the difference.  
These was some left over, but still, I needed much more than the 1 cup described in the original recipe.
The condensed milk filling was probably a little paler and marginally less thick and perhaps slightly sweeter when you tasted it on it's own.  However, once added to the tart shell and smothered with the chocolate and sprinkled with the sea salt - the flavour difference, for me anyway, would be minimal, and a quarter of a tartlet was more than enough for me.  The key difference was the minor variation of colour and thickness. 
Obviously, there will be taste and texture variations between brands of bottled Dulce de Leche too. 
So, use the Deli bottled Dulce de Leche if it is a special occasion - but the tin is a reasonable option.

Pastry preparation

Due to the heat where I live, I divided the mix and then flattened into 3 separate disks (ie 1 small pastry portion for each of the 2 tartlet tins - if you are using the smaller tins option, then divide pastry accordingly.  I took this step to try and avoid the pastry overheating.  
The first time I attempted this recipe, I (being slow and clumsy) prepared all the tins at the same time and therefore struggled with melting gooey pastry. 
The smaller portions definitely make for easier pastry handling if you are not a pastry whizz.

My cooked pastry oozed a little bit too much oil from the butter, so I lightly dabbed with kitchen paper.

Blind Baking


Blind baking weights  - ceramic blind-baking beads or uncooked rice or dried beans - you can save                              this rice/beans to re-use for many future blind-baking procedures. 
Because the raw rice, uncooked beans will have dried out during the blind-bake, it cannot be later cooked as regular rice or beans - so needs to be stored and labelled separately ready for next time. 

Carrying and moving the tarlet tins

Placing tins on an oven tray makes moving them into refrigerator and also in and out of the oven easier. 


Hope you enjoy these indulgent chocolate tartlets (once a year!) and be sure to share with your friends

                                                                   Enjoy!     Colleen