Beautiful tarts with an almond frangipane, filled with caramelised almond bits and topped with a creamy and fruity red currant ganache. The fresh red currants on top as well as the freeze dried red currant powder give the tart a sour note to balance the sweetness.
Special material requirements
8x Tart rings: 8cm diameter (height: 2cm)
Small brush
Print of the chocolate decor design (PDF for download at the bottom)
Acetate foil (optional)
Piping bag (optional)
Cutting plotter (optional)
Recipe
Yield: 8 tarts | Difficulty: medium
Ingredients
Caramelised almonds
40g sliced or slivered almonds
40g sugar
20g butter
1 tbsp water
Almond pate sablé
155g butter (cold)
105g powdered sugar
250g all purpose flour
40g almond flour
1 medium egg
pinch of salt
Almond frangipane
55g sugar
55g butter (room temperature)
55g almond flour
1 large egg
Red currant ganache
225g white chocolate
100g red currant puree (10% sugar)
Red food colouring (claret) (optional)
10g white chocolate
Decoration
White chocolate (approx. 300g & tempered)
Freeze dried red currant powder
Red currants
Carnations
Directions
Caramelised almonds
Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil on medium heat until the water has evaporated and the sugar has a nice caramel colour.
Add the butter and stir until it is incorporated into the sugar.
Finally, add the almonds and stir until all almonds are covered in caramel. If you use raw almonds let them roast a little in the saucepan before you take them out, but make sure not to burn the caramel.
Pour the caramelised almonds onto baking paper and let it cool down.
After it has cooled down, chop the almonds into small to medium pieces.
Almond pate sablé
In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, combine cold butter (cubed), powdered sugar, flour, almond flour and salt. Mix until you get a bread crumb consistency.
Then add the egg and mix just until well combined. Don't over mix it. If there are still some crumbs which are not incorporated, kneed it into the dough by hand.
For this recipe you only need half of the dough amount.
Spread the dough between two baking papers and roll out thinly. Put it in the fridge for at least an hour, until the dough is firm.
Preheat the oven to 175°C fan. Take the dough out of the fridge, remove one baking paper and cut out the base with the tart ring. Additionally, cut out stripes which are about 2.5cm in width (slightly bigger than the walls of the tart) and long enough to line the whole side of the tarts. Line the tart with the dough and press the edges on the bottom together, so that the base and the walls stick together.
Place the lined tart ring into the fridge for another 15-30 minutes, until the dough is firm again. After, trim the excess dough from the edges of the tart ring.
If you have an air mat and a perforated baking tray, place the tart on that. If not, just use a normal baking tray and baking paper. Bake the tart shells for about 10 minutes in the middle of the oven.
Take the tarts out of the oven, and let them cool down. Remove the tart ring.
Almond frangipane
Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the almond flour and whisk again. Add the egg and whisk until homogenous.
Place the caramelised almonds on the bottom of the tarts.
Evenly spread the frangipane dough among the tarts, on top of the caramelised almonds.
Put the tarts back into the oven and bake for another 15 minutes, until the frangipane is golden brown on top and the tart shells are not too dark.
Take the tarts out of the oven and let them cool completely.
Red currant ganache
Melt the 10g white chocolate and brush the inner walls of the tart shells with a thin chocolate layer. This will prevent the tart shells to soak and become soft.
Place the white chocolate and the red currant puree into a bowl and slowly heat it up in the microwave in impulses, always stirring in between, until all the chocolate has melted.
Emulsify the ganache with an immersion blender to release the bubbles.
Optionally, you can add some food colouring to the ganache. If you do, you just need a tiny bit.
Pour the ganache into the tarts.
Decoration
There are two options to make the chocolate decor.
Option tracing: print out the chocolate decor design and place it on a flat surface. Place a piece of baking paper or acetate foil on top. You may want to tape it to your surface to that it doesn't move while you pipe. Pour the tempered white chocolate into a piping bag and trace the design with chocolate. Pipe the contour first and then fill in the gaps. While the chocolate is still wet, sprinkle the freeze dried red currant powder until all chocolate is covered. Let the chocolate set either at room temperature or in the fridge. Then gently peel off the chocolate from the baking paper or acetate foil and place on the tart.
Option cutting plotter: if you happen to have a cutting plotter you can use the PDF to import the image into your plotter program and cut out the outlines of the design on acetate foil. Use some 94% alcohol and spread it on a flat surface. Then stick your cutout to the wet surface and flatten it. Pour some of the tempered white chocolate over the cutout and spread it evenly with a spatula over your cutout. Gently pull up the cutout and put it onto another flat surface. Then sprinkle the freeze dried red currant powder on it while the chocolate is still wet. Let the chocolate set either at room temperature or in the fridge. Then gently peel off the acetate foil from the chocolate and place the decor on the tart.
Add some fresh red currants and carnations for decoration.
Notes
Almond pate sablé: you will have some leftover dough from this recipe. You can either bake the rest into cookies or put it up to one month in the freezer and save it up for another recipe.
Decoration: I designed the chocolate decor myself and you can download the PDF by clicking on the button below.
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