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Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate-Raspberry Tarts
Introduction from Nigella Lawson
With their dark chocolate cases and their white-chocolate mascarpone filling, these look fancy enough, but when you eat them what strikes you is their cleanly balanced simplicity. The almost dry bitterness of the cocoa-darkened pastry balances the rich, fat creaminess of the filling, which in turn is perfectly offset by the tart, neatly-beaded berries.
I won’t pretend that the chocolate pastry is that easy to work with. Yes, it does tear easily, but that doesn’t matter, because it patches up perfectly too. Maybe the first time you make these you should try to get just 4 little tarts out of the dough; later on, when you’re more confident, you should be able to make 6 without trouble.
Like anything which relies in great part on assembly, these are much easier to make than you might think.
Ingredients
Essential kit
You will need: 6 x 12cm tartlet tins with loose bottoms.
Method
Your best bet is to make the pastry in a food processor, so put the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt into the bowl and pulse to blend. Cut the butter into small pieces and pulse with the flour mixture until it looks crumbly. Beat the yolk and iced water together and add, down the funnel, to bind the pastry. When it starts to clump together, turn it out of the processor and work it together with your hands into two discs. Wrap them in clingfilm and rest the pastry in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Roll out one of the dough discs; it will be quite a dry pastry because of the cocoa, so don’t be too heavy-handed with the flour on your rolling surface. Then, using a tart case as a guide, cut at least 3 rough squares or circles slightly bigger than the tin. Ease the pastry squares into the tins – don’t worry if they break, just patch them as best you can – and cut off the excess pastry. Do this with all 6 tins, and then freeze them for about 30 minutes or until they feel frozen. While the pastry’s in the freezer, turn on the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4, and slip in a baking sheet to heat up at the same time.
Put the tartlets straight into the oven on the baking sheet, and cook for 10–15 minutes or until the pastry feels cooked and dry. The freezing plus the fact that the individual area is small means that they shouldn’t puff up, which in turn means we’re doing without the beans and all that blind-baking palaver. While the pastry’s cooking, you might melt the chocolate for the filling, either in the microwave or in a double boiler. When the pastry cases are cool, slip them out of their tins and finish the filling.
This is simple: you just beat the mascarpone and double cream together and fold in the melted, slightly cooled, white chocolate. Go gently with your whisking: you don’t want this too thick; however, a little extra unwhipped double cream stirred in at the end will thin it down if necessary. Fill the pastry cases with the cream, and then top with raspberries.
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