Lemon and Chocolate Tartlets

-
We had a good holiday in Brittany, and enjoyed lots of excellent food and wine. We ate in several creperies, enjoying the galettes made with buckwheat flour and filled with great things like prawns, cheese, ham and veg. We enjoyed some of the regions specialities such as Le Far Breton [ which is similar to the French Flan I posted about a while ago, but it has prunes and rum in it] and Kouign-amann, a butter cake made with yeast - very rich. We visited  couple of biscuit factories and sampled different flavoured palets and the galettes breton. My favourite flavour was the caramel and sea salt one. We also ate some gateau Breton, which is very similar in texture and flavour to the special cake from the Deux Sevres. I find them rather dry, but ok with a glass of cider!

I thought I'd post a French recipe to keep our holiday memories alive. It was given to me by my friend's neighbour; we were invited to her house for a meal, and this was the dessert. She also made a fantastic 'pain d'epices' using Moroccan spices, as her husband is Moroccan. She gave me that recipe too, and permission to use both recipes on my blog - lovely lady. Thank you C.
C bought the shortcrust pastry, but you could make your own, as I did, using your favourite recipe. I bought some candied lemons in a French delicatessen [as well as quite a few other goodies!]. The tartlets are little lemon ones topped with chocolate and cream. What's not to like?

You need shortcrust pastry using 250g of flour - I used 3 egg yolks, 50g of caster sugar and 150g of unsalted butter to make mine in the food processor. Put the ball of pastry in the fridge for about 30 mins then roll out to fit 6 tartlet tins x 10cm in diameter. Prick with a fork or add baking beans and bake blind in a preheated oven 200C/gas6  for 10 mins.

For the filling - beat 3 eggs with 200g of caster sugar and the finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons. Add 100g of melted butter and beat together. Pour the filling into the pastry cases.
Reduce the heat of the oven to 180C/gas4 and bake the tartlets for 20 mins. Put on a wire rack to cool.

Bring 20cl of single cream to the boil and add 200g of dark chocolate broken into pieces - it's easier if you add them in 2 lots. Stir together. Pour onto the lemon tartlets when they're cold. Put in the fridge for an hour before using. Decorate the top with some candied lemon pieces.


Lemon and chocolate is a combination which I've not really tried before, but I like it. The ganache gives a lemon tart a luxurious finish.






Comments

Suelle said…
I've never been convinced that lemon and chocolate go well together, but this does look very tempting!
20/6/14 3:06 am
The Caked Crusader said…
Ooh - that cross section shot looks amazing
23/6/14 8:54 am
Phil in the Kitchen said…
This looks lovely. You've made me very nostalgic and jealous with all that talk of Brittany. I wish I was there right now....
30/6/14 2:25 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aberffraw cakes

-
Image
These were mentioned recently on the GBBO, so I thought I'd find out more about them. They're made on the Isle of Anglesey and are a traditional biscuit really, not a cake. They're served sprinkled with sugar and even with cream and jam, like a scone. The bit I liked was that a scallop shell is pressed into the top to give it a shell-like pattern. Nowadays, a lot of the Aberffraw cakes have the pattern put on with a knife. I have a bag of scallop shells, brought back from France so I used a genuine one to make my pattern. The recipe is a 3.2.1  - quite common for biscuits. This means 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat to 1 part sugar. 175g flour 110g butter 55g caster sugar a little milk more caster sugar for sprinkling over Preheat oven 190C/gas5. Grease a baking sheet. I used a processor to make my dough. Put flour and sugar in a bowl and rub in the butter. Bind together with a litle milk to make a soft dough. Roll out and cut out circles. I used a 7cm cutter an...
Read more

Carrot Cake Muffins

-
Image
 I’m a great muffin fan and have adapted my basic recipe, given to me by an American friend, many times. This is my latest idea. I made the muffins and was asked by a friend if I could make some for a party with the icing you usually get on a carrot cake.  280g plain flour, 1 tbsps baking powder, 1 tspn mixed spice, pinch salt, 115g soft dark brown sugar, 200g grated carrot, 50g chopped pecans or walnuts, 50g sultanas, 2 eggs, 175ml milk, 6 tbsps sunflower oil Optional: icing - 75g soft cream cheese, 49g butter and 35g icing sugar, sprigs of orange zest Preheat oven 200C/gas6. Grease a muffin tin or use muffin cases. Sift together the flour, baking powder and spice. Add carrots, sugar walnuts and sultanas and stir together. In a jug add the milk, oil and beaten eggs. Mix well. Make a well in flour mix and add milk mixture. Stir gently till just mixed. Don’t over mix or muffins will be heavy. Soon into the muffin tin - I use an ice cream scoop. Bake for 20 mins till risen. Cool...
Read more

Bakewell Pudding (or maybe not!)

-
Image
  I recently picked up a book in a local charity shop about 'Food of the British Isles'.It's a compilation of recipes from restaurants and cooks. I was especially interested in the Cake Section, as I've been wanting to try some of the more unusual British cake and pudding recipes for some time. This one isn't very unusual, but thought I'd try it as it's called a Bakewell Pudding and not a Tart. In the book, the writer says says that a Pudding is made with puff pastry and the Tart with shortcrust. Is it that simple? I bet a lot of local people would disagree with this definition! The writer made her puff pastry from scratch, but I bought mine, butter of course! For the Pudding you need : 500g butter puff pastry, 3 tbspn raspberry jam, 150g butter, 150g caster sugar, 3 eggs plus a yolk, beaten, 150g ground almonds, zest of a lemon,2 tspn almond extract, 1 tbspn flaked almonds and some icing sugar to dust the top. Preheat oven 190C/gas5        ...
Read more