Christmas tarts

5 from 15 votes

These festive mini Christmas Tarts are the ultimate elegant desserts you to for Christmas dinner and impress everyone! Homemade Pâte Sablée tart cases filled with crunchy pistachios, and creamy pistachio paste that is topped with silky chocolate ganache. Then, delicious Pistachio whipped ganache is used on top to make the Christmas tree decoration.

Prep Time1

Cook Time1

Waiting Time6

Total Time8

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings:

Calories: 1076kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

For the 6x Chocolate Pâte Sablée tart shell and 12x Chocolate Sablée cookies

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 Chocolate ganache

150 g Dark or Milk Chocolate good quality, eg. Callebaut Milk Chocolate (callets)
150 g Heavy Cream 36% fat content

Pistachio layer in the tart

60 g Pistachio
Pistachio paste optional

Pistachio decoration on the side

small amount of melted chocolate
100 g Pistachio finely chopped

Pistachio whipped ganache

225 g White chocolate good quality, eg. Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets)
550 g Heavy Cream fat content min 36%
60 g Pistachio paste 100% pistachio only!
4 Gelatine sheet

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Pistachio whipped ganache

Place Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets) into a bowl or alternatively chop white chocolate into small pieces and place them into a bowl. Pour pistachio paste on top
Soak gelatin into cold water
Heat 250g cream until simmering, mix gelatin sheet in and pour it over the chocolate & pistachio paste mixture
Let the chocolate cream mixture set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir together or hand blend. Once mixture slightly cools to room temp, stir in rest of the cream, cover the top of the ganache with plastic wrap and refrigerate for minimum 4 hours
The mixture should thicken after 4 hours and can be whipped into a pipeable, fluffy consistency in a Stand mixer. Once it is reached a fluffy consistency (1-2min), make sure you do not over whip the ganache as it can break. Whipped ganache should be stored in the fridge before using it or best if you use it immediately

For the 6x Chocolate Pâte Sablée tart shell and 12x Chocolate Sablée cookies

The dough will be enough to make 6 tarts and 6 larger and 6 smaller sable cookies
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 Silicine baking mats. Do not use extra flour for rolling
Place the dough into the freezer for 15 min in between two Silicone baking mats. 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 6 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 6 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 tart dough in them into the freezer for 2 hours
While tart dough is in freezer, prepare the sablee cookies. Using the remaining dough repeat the process. Roll it into 2mm thickness between two Silicone baking mats, use the freezer if dough gets too soft to work with
Cut out 12 circles with the help of 2 cookie cutters; 6x small ones and 6x larger ones eg. 3 cm and 5 cm in diameter. Make sure the larger one is not bigger than the actual diameter of the tart
Freeze the sable cookie circles too before baking. It is enough to freezer them for about 1h
Pre-heat oven to 160C / 320F (no fan)
Bake the sable cookies in between two Perforated "air" baking mats for about 15 minutes
After tart dough is well frozen (2h), take them out of the freezer and trim the top to the level of the tart rings 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 mats
For the cookies, re-roll the leftover dough and cut out 6 smaller and 6 larger size cookies then bake them at 160C / 320F (no fan) for 10 minutes

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 or hand blend together

Assemble

Prepare all the elements ahead of assembling: Tart shells, Sablee cookies, Pistachip whipped ganache, Chocolate ganache, Small amount of melted chocolate, Chopped pistachio, Pistachio paste (optional)
Once tart shells are cooled to room temp, brush their side (outside) with melted chocolate and apply finely chopped pistachio on the side. The pistachio will stick to the tart due to the melted chocolate
Place few pieces (10) of pistachio into each tart shell and pipe a small amount of pistachio paste on top
Pour chocolate ganache over the pistachio and pistachio paste and fill the tart shells to the top
Pop the tarts into the fridge for the ganache to set, this can take min. an hour. Make sure ganache is fully set before attempting to continue with the next step
Take the pistachio ganache out of the fridge and whip it up until it reaches a pipeable consistency. This will take for a minute or two, make sure you do not over whip it as it can break. Move whipped ganache into a piping bag fitted with French star nozzle tip.
Arrange the sable cookies and prepare the Christmas tree shape decoration that will go on top of the tarts: each tart will need one larger and one smaller sable cookie. Pipe pistachio whipped ganache on top of the larger sable cookie then carefully place the smaller sable cookie on top and pipe another layer of pistachio whipped ganache on top
Once chocolate ganache is fully set in the tart, pipe pistachio whipped ganache on top
Lastly, carefully place the Christmas tree shape decoration on top (that you made earlier). The tart will need a few more hours in the fridge before it fully sets

Nutrition