I tried this chocolate pastry for Valentine's Day and, other than overcooking it so it was a bit smokier than hoped, it was delicious. Filled with mousse and chopped toasted nuts, it was even better.
I wished I had sprinkled a little cayenne pepper into the pastry, for a subtle hit of hotness. A teaspoon of pulverized instant coffee granules would also have been good. I imagine that using ground hazelnuts in the pastry and chopped hazelnuts in the cups would be just as delicious as almond flour and chopped almonds.
1/3 cup softened butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
3 tbsp potato starch flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
pinch of salt
In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together flours and starches, cocoa, xanthan, and salt. Using an electric mixer on a low setting, mix flour mixture into butter mixture until well combined.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.
Remove pastry dough from the refrigerator and from the plastic wrap. Divide into 24 even balls, warming the dough as little as possible with your hands. Set out 2 12-cup mini-muffin or tartlet pans. Place one ball in each of 24 tartlet cups. Press gently and evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the little cups. Prick the bottoms with a fork.
Chill the pastry while the oven preheats to 375F. Bake for about 15 minutes, watching carefully in the last minutes to prevent burning. (The dough is so dark, it's hard to tell if the brown is edging to black.) Turn the pastries out of the pans to cool on a rack. Allow to cool completely before filling.
Chocolate Mousse: Finely chop 8 oz bittersweet chocolate. Place in a heatproof bowl. Heat 3/4 cup of cream in a small saucepan until just beginning to boil. Pour cream over chocolate. Whisk until smooth and chocolate is melted and glossy. Stir in 2 tbsp orange liqueur. Refrigerate for about 1 hour; remove from refrigerator and whip until light.
Assembly:
Coarsely chop 1/2 cup of toasted almonds. Reserving 1/4 cup of the chopped nuts for garnish, sprinkle the remaining nuts into the bottoms of the cooled pastry cups. Mound each cup with mousse, using a knife to make sure the mousse adheres to the outside edges of the pastry and seals in the nuts. Sprinkle the reserved nuts on top of the mousse.
Refrigerate the tartlets until ready to serve.
Makes 24 tartlets.
