Chocolate ganache tarte

The holidays are here and, as each day brings its own tasks to be tackled or projects to delight us, I want to send all of you my wishes for a very peaceful season.

And what better time to talk about chocolate!!

This ganache tarte is one of my all time faves. The more I consider all of the goodies I’ve created and written about over the years and the things I so enjoy making, the more I realize that the simplest things are usually the best. This delicious treat has been often requested and frequently made, but, believe it or not, even though I’ve perhaps referred to it in various iterations over the years, I’ve never given it top billing. So here goes.

During my Providence/Pawtucket days I made 80 mm individual versions for my retail space, keeping ‘em clean with a sprinkle of chocolate crunchy crumbs and a dusting of confectioner’s sugar. Plain and delicious. Then it’s up to the buyer to leave it au naturel and eat it out of hand or dress it up for serving - dollop on some whipped cream and a few fresh raspberries (for you fruit and chocolate lovers) or top with crunchy candied nuts or some sesame brittle.

Individual ganache tartes

The process utilizes some of the basics in tarte making - cooled blind baked shell; ganache filling poured in and cooled; garnish as you wish; serve and enjoy. Pretty straight forward. You can use either a pâte sucrée au chocolat or a standard pâte sucrée.

As an aside, I’m not intending to overwhelm but to explore options with you for creating your own version of a delicious ganache tarte!

As for planning ahead, be sure you make your chosen dough either the day before or early enough to allow an hour or two for the dough to chill in the fridge before rolling it out. An even better plan-ahead step is to make a double or triple batch of dough a week or two ahead, divide it into approximately 260-280 gram / 9-10 ounce portions and hold them in the freezer well wrapped. The dough keeps for months. Just thaw it in the fridge overnight before using.

You’ll fully blind bake the tarte shell first. When you’re ready, roll out the dough (generally about 260-280 grams / 9-10 ounces for a 9”) and line a 9” tart ring or fluted pan. Place it on a parchment lined sheet pan, prick the bottom all over with a fork and pop it into the freezer for 15-20 minutes to firm it up.

I often do various sizes for different venues. Roll with it (hah! - get it?). You’ll learn to figure out how much filling will work for certain sized tartes. I gauge a double batch of filling should fill the rings below (not including the little brioche tins).

So many choices!

My favorite 65 mm rings - perfect!

7 inch and 5.5 inch rings

You can actually do the lining step a day or two ahead and hold it in the freezer until baking day. No need to thaw it - just line with a round of parchment, fill with weights or dried beans. Bake at 350ºF for 12-15 minutes, then lift out the weights and parchment and bake an additional 5-8 minutes to fully bake/dry the bottom. Cool completely before filling.

Fully blind baked shell

As if there weren’t enough options for this tarte shell, here’s one more way to help with the plan-ahead process. You can freeze the fully baked shell too! There have been times that I’ve had a baked shell in my freezer for several weeks before I decided it was time to fill and enjoy it. So many possibilities!

The ganache filling is as simple as ganache can be. Place 227 g / 8 ounces of chopped dark chocolate or discs/feves in a medium heat proof bowl along with 28 g / 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Heat 360 g / 1.5 cups heavy cream to boiling then pour the hot cream over the chocolate/butter. Let it sit a minute then gently blend with a whisk or spatula until smooth. Don’t be aggressive with the mixing - you don’t want to aerate it. Blend in 30 ml / 2 tablespoons brewed espresso - I often make a mix of 1/4 cup hot water with a half tablespoon espresso powder as a substitute for the brewed and use 30 ml of that.

Once the ganache is made, pour it directly into the blind baked shell.

Let it sit out at room temperature uncovered for an hour or so to let the heat dissipate before placing it into the fridge (again uncovered) to fully set. If you put it in the fridge right away, you’ll get condensation on the surface - not attractive, believe you me. Plus chocolate doesn’t like that.

Once chilled, garnish away! Crunchy chocolate crumbs, a light confectioner’s sugar dust, whipped cream and voila! It keeps covered in the fridge over several days so don’t feel like you have to eat it all right away!

An option for you nut lovers out there is to spread some toasted chopped nuts of choice coated in caramel on the bottom and pour the ganache over them. You can do fewer nuts and more ganache or more nuts and less ganache. Below are images of a few different sizes I experimented with for Thanksgiving a few years ago.

Pecans and caramel nestled in

Ganache poured over, ready to set

As for how you’d like to garnish your tarte, keep it simple by dolloping some Chantilly cream on each slice and adding some fresh raspberries. The pecan/caramel version below received a layer of chocolate crunchy crumbs, a dusting of confectioner’s sugar and a simple trio of toasted pecans. Yum.

For petite tartelettes, top the already set ganache with a lighter whipped version of chilled 2.5 parts cream to 1 part chocolate ganache and add a simple chocolate disc as decor.

Check out my ganache tips for more fun with ganache.

Petit fours tartelettes

Nothing like a day late and a dollar short. These images are from late October but I had to share a bit of seasonal beauty with you. They say snow’s a comin’!

Bejeweled burning bush

Late season color after a first snowfall - October 31, 2023

Here’s to comforting and grateful days, keeping our spirits and hearts bright, staying active and healthy and hoping for calm around the world. Cheers and, as always, happy baking!

Chocolate caramel cream cheese trifle

Here’s a quick look at making a simple trifle. It’s a great way to use up left over components or you can start with freshly made goodies as well. These were put together for a family gathering - transportable and self contained.

Typically a trifle consists of cake cubes (pound, genoise, classic layer or pretty much any kind of cake you’d like to use), an imbibing syrup or fruit sauce to moisten the cake, a creamy layer like pastry cream, whipped mascarpone, lemon curd or chocolate mousse, fruits of choice, or in my case, no fruit at all. I like to include some kind of crunch in the form of cookie crumbs, chopped toasted nuts, crushed nut brittle or caramelized puffed rice for something just a little different. Make your trifle in any size you’d like - a large bowl or individual cups or ramekins. A classic trifle bowl is clear glass and deep so as to show off the layers but anything works!

Remember that Reine de Saba post I wrote awhile back? Well it turns out I had some of the cake in the freezer plus some whipped-cream-lightened cream cheese pastry cream on hand from another project. Since I always have homemade caramel sauce in my fridge and chocolate crunchy crumbs in my freezer, I thought why not create a lovely layered trifle for an easy summer dessert?

The one thing I did make fresh was the caramelized puffed rice - a simple process of stirring together 50 g sugar, 50 g light corn syrup, 25 g unsalted butter and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan, bringing it to a boil and then stirring in 62 g puffed rice.

Spread the mixture out on a Silpat lined sheet pan and bake in a 375ºF oven for 20 minutes until golden brown. Let it cool then break into shards. Makes plenty!

I used Arrowhead Mills puffed rice (ingredient: puffed brown rice - no sugar, no salt, no fat) and find it perfect for this. Once caramelized, it reminds me of an ever so lightly sweetened version of Sugar Crisp cereal which I used to love as a kid, only much better! I even added some to my morning shredded wheat and berries for that little extra something. Not a bad way to start the day.

Below you see my cream cheese pastry cream, chocolate crunchy cookie crumbs, caramel and slices of Reine de Saba waiting to be crumbled up.

In go the chunks of chocolate cake, chocolate crunchy crumbs, a drizzle of caramel and a swirl of pastry cream . . . .

. . . . . followed by more cake chunks, crumbs, caramel and a final pastry cream swirl. I added a final dollop of lightened sweetened whipped cream, then into the fridge until ready to serve. These can be assembled several hours ahead or even up to a day (although the chocolate cookie crumbs might get a tad soggy in that case).

I added the caramelized puffed rice on top just before serving to preserve the light crunch.

What a pleasing combo of creamy, chocolate-y, crunchy and lightly sweet - not bad at all.

When making your own trifle, particularly when using an imbibing syrup or fruity sauce, it’s fine (and even recommended) to assemble the evening before or the morning of - that gives plenty of time for cake to soften and flavors meld for a delicious finale to your day.

Have fun with it!

Hazelnut dacquoise tarte

This little project came about as a way of creating a dessert for another recent family dinner at cousin Jen's house. Steve, as usual, requested something with chocolate, and since I wanted to keep it on the lighter side, I decided on a nutty meringue base (known as dacquoise) as the launch for what was to come. Cue in chocolate ganache, chocolate crunchy crumbs and fresh berries. Not a bad way to go.

I used my rectangular tart form to outline the shape in which I wanted to pipe my meringue. The pics below give you a nifty technique with which to create the area you'd like to fill.

Place your desired form/shape on your lined sheet pan (I'm using silpat here since it's my fave for baking meringues), dust around the edges with powdered sugar . . . 

then simply lift off the form and your outline is staring you right in the face. How cool is that?!

Now pipe away!! The powdered sugar won't hurt a thing since the meringue receives a dusting anyway before going in the oven.

All piped out

The meringue bakes at 350ºF for about 20 minutes until nicely browned.

The beauty of meringue is its make-ahead-ability. Do it several days ahead and freeze it or, if doing it the day before, just lightly wrap it at room temperature until you're ready for the next step.

Time to assemble. For this one I poured a thin layer of a standard 1:1 ganache made with 61% Guittard chocolate over the base, inside the raised edge. I let it set a bit.

Then a light layer of chocolate shortbread crunchy crumbs . . .

and to finish off a whipped chocolate ganache made with the same Guittard chocolate in a 3:1 cream to chocolate ratio, more crunchies and some lovely fresh berries.

And just to show you another version, here's a small round base I made with the same hazelnut meringue. This one got a sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts too. Create your own and top it with whatever your little heart desires!

Here's the PDF of the recipe for the hazelnut meringue, also listed below. It makes just the right amount to create both the 11"x4" rectangle and the 6"-ish/16 cm round forms you see here. Play around with your own shapes and sizes.

• 198 g egg whites (about 6 large) at room temperature

• 50 g cane sugar (many use superfine sugar for meringues - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

• 198 g hazelnut flour or meal

• 150 g powdered sugar

1. Heat the oven to 350ºF (or 325º convection)

2. Whisk the hazelnut flour and powdered sugar together in a medium bowl.

3. Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on low for several minutes until a nice foam starts developing, then shower in the granulated sugar on medium-low speed until it's all added.

4. Up the speed to high and whisk to medium stiff peaks.

5. Fold in half of the hazelnut mixture, then add the second half and fold until nicely combined.

6. Pipe or spread your meringue in the shape of your choice.

7. Bake about 20 minutes until nicely browned. Pay attention to what's going on in that oven!!

Once your base is cool proceed with your choice of filling. The sky's the limit. And remember you can sub in pretty much any nut flour for the hazelnut in the meringue recipe. Even do half-and-half of two different nuts. Yes!

Here are just a few filling ideas: a simple lightly sweetened Chantilly cream topped with fresh berries; a tangy citrus curd lightened with whipped cream and topped with tropical fruits and maybe even a little toasted coconut; any whipped ganache using white, milk or dark chocolate topped with your own version of shortbread crumbs - how about chai or ginger - and your favorite nut, seed or sesame brittle; a standard pastry cream topped with lightly poached pear slices, some candied nuts and a drizzle of caramel.

It's up to you!