Chocolate Frangipane Tartlettes

Including Chocolate and Raspberry Frangipane Tartlettes,  my entry for the September "We Should Cocoa" Challenge, which is being run by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog, and Chele at Chocolate Teapot. The idea is that the two chocoholics will take it in turn each month to suggest a compulsory added ingredient to be used in conjunction with chocolate products in our baking. It's no hardship for me to include a chocolate baked product every month, and the challenge of using new ingredients may expand my cooking into new areas. The full rules can be found here, and this month's challenge of using raspberries has been set by Chele.

It was actually the use of raspberries which was the hard part of the challenge, as my Chief Tester is famous within the family for showing his dislike of raspberries in a spectacular way (throwing up over Granny's tea table). However, that was more than 20 years ago, and he's too polite to do that now, I hope! But it does mean that I don't often include raspberries in things I want him to eat.  To get over the possibility of him not liking a tartlette with raspberries in, I decided to make half the tartlettes with Nutella instead of raspberry jam.

Raspberry Frangipane Tartlettes

Ingredients

Chocolate Pastry:

150g plain flour

100g butter at room temperature

25g icing sugar

25g cocoa 

1 egg yolk

cold water as needed

Frangipane Topping:

110g soft butter

110g caster sugar

1whole egg + 1 egg white

1 tablespoon plain flour

110g ground almonds or other nuts of choice (I used a mix of almonds, apricot kernels and hazlenuts)

To finish - raspberry jam, Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread, a few flaked almonds, 50g plain chocolate

Method

To make the pastry - Sift the cocoa and icing sugar into the flour, then rub in the butter until the mixture is like breadcrumbs. Mix in the egg yolk and enough water to make a soft but not sticky dough. Knead lightly, then wrap in cling film and chill for 20 minutes. After chilling roll out as thinly as possible and cut out fluted circles to line tartlette moulds (mincepie tray). (I got 18 tartlettes out of this amount of dough).

To make the frangipane topping - Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg, egg white and tablespoon of flour. Finally, fold in the ground nuts.

To assemble the tartlettes - Put a scant teaspoon of raspberry jam into half the pastry cases, and the same amount of Nutella into the rest, spreading it as much as possible. Top with the frangipane mixture, adding enough to almost fill the cases. Sprinkle the rasberry tartlettes with a few flaked almonds.

Bake at 200C for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C and cook until the frangipane is golden brown and feels set - roughly another 10 miuntes. Rest in the tin for 3 minutes then move to a wire rack to cool. The frangipane will puff up as it cooks, but fall back as it cools to give a level top.

Nutella  Frangipane Tartlettes

To finish, put 50g plain chocolate into a small plastic freezer bag and heat in a bowl of hot water until the chocolate has melted. Snip a corner off the bag to make a very small hole, then swing the bag about over the tartlettes to allow a free-form trail of chocolate to land on the tartlettes as it runs out of the bag.

Both tartlettes were delicious, the pastry was crisp and the frangipane moist and chewy. Those with the raspberry jam had a tart fruity flavour which went well with the frangipane topping, but those with Nutella were better - the added chocolate flavour really enhanced the flavour of the pastry.