Jacques Génin is a French chef and a well-known confectioner/chocolatier who conjures up a dreamy speciality made mainly from chocolate and caramel. His chocolate factory is located in Paris. Last but not least, he has also gained fame for his cookbook. Today I would like to share with you his recipe for chocolate tarts. You can make a mini version by halving the amount of ingredients for the chocolate ganache. If you are going to use 8 cm diameter baking pans (i.e. about 10-12 pieces of tarts) or a large tart tin, keep the amount of ingredients for the ganache as written in the recipe.

 

 

Ingredients for the pastry dough:

 

25 g Almond Meal

100 g Confectioner’s Sugar

2 g Salt

250 g Flour

140 g Cold Butter, cubed

1 Beaten Egg

 

Ingredients for the Chocolate Ganache:

 

440 ml Whipping Cream 35% fat (220 ml for mini version).

420 g Dark Chocolate (210 g for the mini version)

 

 

Method: Pastry dough

 

Sift together almond meal, sugar, salt and flour. Cut cold butter into small pieces and add to the prepared dry ingredients. Mix everything together until a sandy mixture is obtained. Add a beaten egg. Mix until the ingredients come together into a ball of dough.

 

Transfer the dough to the fridge and let chill for at least 30 minutes.

 

Then remove the dough from the fridge and divide it into the tart baking pans with your hands so that it does not overflow during the baking process (fill the baking pans only ¾ full with the dough).

 

Preheat the oven to 160 °C. Bake your mini tarts for about 14 minutes. Remove the chocolate tarts from the baking pans by lightly banging the baking pans against the work surface. Be careful and do not burn your hands on the baking pans.

 

Finally, leave your tarts to cool on a wire rack.

 

Method: Chocolate Ganache

 

Place the chocolate in a large mixing bowl. Heat the cream until almost boiling. Then remove from heat and strain the cream into the bowl with the chocolate. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes before stirring with spatula.

 

Keep the spatula touching the bottom of the bowl to prevent air bubbles from getting in. Your ganache is done when it is homogeneous and glossy.

 

Using a piping bag, fill your mini tarts with chocolate ganache and leave to cool.

 

Do you want to add the finishing touch to your chocolate tarts? Sprinkle them with cocoa powder! The chocolate tarts will be soften the next day. 

 

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