Category: Sweet Pastry

These peanut butter tarts have a sweet pastry base, a delicious peanut butter and chocolate filling and are piled high with light Italian meringue, which is then torched for a crispy outer shell and soft marshmallowy centre.

For the tarts, I used pastry rings with a 10cm diameter.  You could also use Yorkshire pudding tins or just make one large pastry base.

Sweet Pastry

• 200g plain flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks (reserve the egg whites for the meringue)

Weigh out the flour, butter and sugar in to a bowl. Use your fingers to rub the ingredients together until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks and mix together until it forms a smooth dough. Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.

Whilst the dough is chilling, grease your dough rings with butter (be generous as the butter is needed for the pastry to stick to the sides). Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the rings on ready.

Once the pastry has chilled, roll it out until its about the thickness of a pound coin. Use a cutter that is larger than your tart rings to cut out circles of dough. Place the dough inside the tart ring and press it evenly in to the bottom and the sides. If you haven’t put enough butter on, the pastry won’t stick to the sides – if this happens, just remove the pastry and grease the tart ring with more butter. Use a sharp knife to remove the excess pastry from the top of the ring. Repeat for the remaining 3 rings, then chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan oven).

Take out of the fridge and prick the bottom of the tart rings with a fork. Then take some greaseproof paper and line the tarts with the paper (this works better if you scrumple it up first). Then fill generously with baking beans or rice.  Place in the oven to bake for about 12 minutes. Then remove the paper and the beans and bake the empty tartlets for a further 4-6 minutes until they have dried out and are fully baked. Leave to cool fully in the rings.

For the chocolate and peanut butter filling…

• 150g milk chocolate
• 150g double cream
• 4 tbsp smooth peanut butter
• 30g unsalted butter

Break up the chocolate in to a bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it is hot and steaming, pour over the chocolate and leave for a couple of minutes so the chocolate starts to melt. Start to whisk the chocolate cream until it becomes a smooth mixture. Add the peanut butter and the butter and whisk until smooth.

Spoon the mixture evenly in to the cooled pastry tarts. Tap lightly on the work surface to remove any air bubbles, then pop in the fridge to set.

Italian Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 200g caster sugar
• 5 tbsp water

Place the egg whites ready in a mixer with a whisk attachment. In a saucepan, start to gently heat the sugar and water mixture. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat and pop your sugar thermometer in. When the mixture reaches 115°C, start whisking up the egg whites until they reach the soft peak stage. When the sugar reaches 118°C, pour carefully into the egg whites (keep the mixer whisking on a low speed). Then turn up to high speed and whisk until the mixture is stiff, glossy and has cooled down (about 10 minutes).

With a small palette knife, spread a small amount of meringue evenly over each tart, right to the edge of the pastry. This creates a neater edge for the tarts.

Then dollop the remaining meringue on top of each tart. Use a palette knife to spread about over the top and create a bit of texture.

Now it’s time to blowtorch! If you don’t have one, it can be done under the grill but it will be more difficult to control.  Torch the meringue as much or as little as you like and they are ready to eat!

Millefeuille are available in every patisserie in Paris and I was looking forward to making them at pastry school. So you can imagine my disappointment when they were not on the course. However after making them myself I can see why we didn’t spend precious school time on them. They are so easy to make, especially if you buy the puff pastry ready made.

These millefeuille have a layer of raspberry and a layer of lemon crème pâtissière. Be warned, there is no tidy way to eat a millefeuille!

Raspberry Crème Pâtissière 

• 250g raspberries
• 2 egg yolks
• 50g caster sugar
• 30g cornflour

First of all, heat the raspberries in a saucepan with a tablespoon of water. Stir gently until the raspberries have broken down and become a liquid. Remove from the heat and pass the liquid through a sieve to remove all the seeds. Place the raspberry purée back in to the saucepan and turn the heat up to a medium heat.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, with the sugar and the cornflour.

Once the raspberry purée is starting to steam, pour a small amount in to the egg mixture and whisk together very quickly. This will help loosen the egg mixture and gently heat it through, reducing the whisk of scrambling the eggs.

Pour the whole mixture into the saucepan, put on a high heat and whisk constantly. The mixture will start to thicken. You need to be careful not to allow any part of the bottom to burn. The easiest way to do this is to keep rotating the pan with one hand and whisk in different directions with the other.

When the mixture is thick and glossy, remove from the heat and pour in to a clean bowl straight away. Leave to cool.

Lemon Crème Pâtissière, you will need…

• 150ml milk (I use semi skimmed)
• 2 egg yolks
• 30g sugar
• 20g cornflour
• zest of 2 lemons
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Pop the milk in a saucepan and put over a low heat. Meanwhile, whisk all the other ingredients together in a separate bowl.

When the milk is starting to steam, pour a small amount in to the egg mixture and whisk. Then (just like with the raspberry crème pat) pour the whole mixture in to the saucepan, turn the heat up to max and whisk continuously. Once the mixture is thick, pour in to a clean bowl and leave to cool.

You can cool both of these in the fridge, but cover with cling film and make sure the film is touching the crème pat to stop a skin forming and to stop condensation developing.

For the pastry, you will need…

• Ready rolled puff pastry, approx 300g
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper. Unroll the pastry. With a clean ruler, measure and cut out 12 rectangles, 9 cm long and 5 cm wide. Place on to the baking tray and space the pastry out.

With a pastry brush, brush a thin layer of egg wash over the top of each piece of pastry and allow to dry. Take another sheet of baking paper and put on top of the pastry. Then place another baking tray on top. This stops the pastry rising too much.

Bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

To assemble the millefeuille, fill two piping bags with the crème pâtissèrie. I used a 12mm round nozzle for both. Lay out 4 pieces of pastry and pipe circles of the raspberry crème pat on each piece (I did 8 circles on each one).

Take four more pieces of pastry and add a layer on top of the raspberry crème pat.

Then pipe circles of lemon crème pat on top of these. Finally adding the top layer of pastry.

To finish, dust with icing sugar and serve straight away.

 

Chocolate and passion fruit together are one of my favourite combinations. For this tart, the chocolate and passion fruit filling are swirled together and encased by a chocolate pastry. The tart is delicious on its own or can be accompanied by some pouring cream.

Chocolate Pastry

• 175g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 50g icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100g butter
• 1 egg

In a food processor, mix the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt and butter. Be careful not to over mix. Pulse a few times until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and pulse until it comes together in to a ball. Take the pastry, pat it down in to a flat disc shape and wrap in cling film. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Grease a 23cm loose bottomed tart tin by brushing a thin layer of butter all over. Take your chilled pastry and roll out between 2 sheets of cling film . Once the pastry is about the thickness of a pound coin, pop in to the tin. Press the pastry in to the sides all the way around then pop back in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes. Leave the pastry hanging over the edges – it will be trimmed later.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C and place a baking tray in the oven to heat up. When the pastry has chilled, take out of the fridge and prick the bottom all over with a fork. Cover the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans (or rice, lentils etc). Bake on the preheated tray for 15 minutes. Take the beans out and trim the edges using a sharp knife. Place back in the oven without the paper or baking beans for another 10 minutes until the pastry is crisp. Once baked, leave in the tin and cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate & Passion fruit filling

• 8 passion fruits
• 185g butter
• 5 eggs
• 5 egg yolks
• 375g caster sugar
• 25g cornflour
• 100g dark chocolate

Scrape the insides out of all the passion fruits in to a large saucepan. Add the butter and about half the sugar and pop on a low heat. Keep on the low heat and slowly melt the butter and dissolve the sugar with the passion fruit.

Pass the passsion fruit mixture through a sieve into a bowl to remove all the passion fruit seeds.

Chop the chocolate in to small pieces with a sharp knife. Leave in a bowl until needed later.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining sugar together. Whisk in the cornflour. Finally, whisk in the eggs one at a time.

Put the passion fruit mixture back in the saucepan. Pour a small amount in to the egg mix and whisk together (this helps to heat the egg mix and hopefully stop the eggs cooking too quickly and scrambling). Pour all the egg mix in to the saucepan, turn up the heat and whisk continuously for a few minutes. You need to be careful not to burn the bottom so keep scraping round the sides with the whisk and move the pan around to reach all the base. After a couple of minutes the mixture will thicken considerably. Once it is thick and glossy, pour in to a jug.

This mixture makes about a litre. Pour around 400ml on to the chocolate and whisk together. The chocolate will melt in seconds as the mixture is so hot.

Finally, pour the passion fruit filling in to the cooled pastry case. Dollop spoonfuls of the chocolate mix all over the top and use a skewer to swirl the 2 mixes together. Pop in the fridge for at least a couple of hours to chill down and set, remove the tart from the tin and then dig in!