Salted caramel Chocolate Tarts

5 from 15 votes

Salted caramel Chocolate Tarts

These mini Salted Caramel Chocolate tarts are one of my favorite desserts ever! It just tastes phenomenal as the buttery caramel with a slightly salty kick meets the silky chocolate ganache in a buttery chocolate sweet shortcrust pastry!

Cook Time1

Waiting Time2 30

Total Time3 30

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings:

Calories: 489kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

For the Chocolate Pâte Sablée

90 g Powdered sugar
200 g Pastry flour
30 g Almond flour
30 g Unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
110 g Unsalted butter very cold
50 g Egg approx. 1 egg

For the Caramel

107 g Granulated sugar
42 g Unsalted butter room temperature
62 g Heavy Cream lukewarm
Large pinch of salt

For the Chocolate ganache

100 g Chocolate good quality, eg. Valrhona
100 g Heavy Cream

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

For the Chocolate Pâte Sablée

Sift together dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, icing sugar, almond, salt
Add very cold butter cubes and rub the mixture between your hands until it becomes a sand like consistency. This will take around a minute or two
Add egg into the mixture and mix with your hands just until the dough comes together, few seconds
Knead with the palm of your hand for a minute or two (do not over knead and do not use mixer) just until the dough becomes smooth. Form a disk and cover the dough in plastic wrap. Let it rest in the fridge for min 2 hours. You can leave it resting in the fridge over night or you can even freeze the dough
After the dough rested roll it out into 2mm thickness between two Silicone baking mat. Do not use extra flour for rolling
Place the dough into the freezer for 15 min in between two Silicone baking mat. Do not remove the mat at this point
Prepare your oven rack with the Perforated "air" baking mat and Perforated tart rings on top
Take the dough out from the freezer and using one of the Perforated tart rings, cut out 8 circles - this will be the bottom of your tart crust. Carefully move the dough circles with the help of an Offset spatula and place them into the rings one by one
If at any point the dough gets too warm to work with, pop it back into the freezer for 5 minutes. You might need take the dough in and out of the freezer 10-15 times. It is extremely important to work with a dough that is cold enough to be able to handle (so not sticky) but not too cold which would result in breaking it
Cut 8 long stripes out of the dough, this will be the side of the tart
Carefully place the stripes into the ring one by one. Press each stripe onto the ring so it sticks to it
Place the Perforated tart rings with the pastry dough in them into the freezer for 2 hours
Pre-heat oven to 160C / 320F
After 2 hours take the pastry dough with the rings on them out and trim the top to the level of the tart ring with a sharp knife
Bake for 18 min then carefully remove the rings and bake for another 5 min. Let them cool on the Perforated "air" baking mat

For the caramel

First and foremost be careful throughout the process not to burn yourself with sugar. Melt and caramelize sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat, do not stir until it starts to turn golden brown. Watch the pan carefully as once it starts caramelizing, it can burn quickly
When sugar fully dissolved and turns golden brown in color, add in butter in 3 steps while whisking vigorously. It will bubble and it´s normal, be careful. If butter starts to separate just keep whisking
Once butter fully incorporated slowly pour lukewarm heavy cream into the mixture and boil for a minute. It will bubble and rise slightly but keep whisking. After about a minute your caramel is done, add the salt now. Use it in a few minutes as later it will start to set. If you need the caramel to be more runny feel free to re-heat it in microwave

For the chocolate ganache

Chop chocolate into small pieces and place them into a bowl
Heat cream in a saucepan over medium heat just until simmering
Pour warm cream over chocolate, let it set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir together

Assemble

Once tart tart shells cooled down to room temperature, prepare caramel sauce and pour warm but not hot caramel into the tart shells to fill ½ of them. Pop the tarts into the fridge for the caramel to set
Prepare chocolate ganache and pour warm chocolate ganache on top of the caramel layer
The tart will need to set in the fridge for about an hour before serving. Decorate with golden dust spray
Store refrigereated for a few days

Nutrition