Hazelnuts, chocolate, caramel, oranges! Which is the leading actor of this tart? And the Oscar goes to … you name it!
ingredients for 4 generous servings (total cost about 6€ for the whole preparation with organic ingredients)
a portion of our basic sucrèe dough for tarts made with
- 125 g pastry flour
- 75 g butter
- 37,5 g superfine sugar
- zest from ¼ lemon
- 25 g egg (½ egg)
- 2 g salt
- 20 g hazelnuts
a portion of basic hazelnut cream made with
- 50 g egg (about 1 egg)
- 50 g hazelnuts
- 50 g butter
- 30 g superfine sugar
- 5 g cornstarch (10%)
- 1 pinch of salt
for the creamy chocolate ganache
- 200 g dark chocolate (at least 70%)
- a portion of basic crème anglaise made with:
- 300 g milk
- 60g egg yolks (about 3 egg yolks)
- 30 g sugar (10%)
- 1 pinch of salt
for the caramelized hazelnuts and the rest of the decoration
- 30 g hazelnuts
- 30 g sugar
- a few lemon drops
- a few candied orange peels
When it comes to ganache, we all think about the classic version, made with equal parts of melted chocolate and liquid cream brought to the same temperature and mixed together.
I personally find it a little boring. I prefer to use a more “luxurious” version, made with crème anglaise instead of liquid cream, which gives us a more silky sauce to garnish beautiful tarts, like this one. It is in my opinion by far superior and what is more, lighter in terms of fats. I remind you that, as our beloved DG informs us, each yolk consists of 30 % fat and that to make a crème anglaise we use 1 yolk (about 20g weight) for every 100 g of full fat (3,5%) milk. So the total fat of 100 g of crème anglaise is about 10 g, much less than that of the liquid cream, which contains at least 30 g fat per 100 g.
As for the flavor combination – chocolate, orange and hazelnuts, especially the caramelized ones – well, I consider it a guarantied success.
First of all we roast the hazelnuts. We spread them on a baking sheet and place them in a preheated oven at 170 o C for 10 -13 minutes, depending on their initial moisture, then we rub them between our hands to take off as much skin as possible. We let them cool. We keep 30 g of the total of 100 g to caramelize them for the decoration, and we ground the remaining 70 g in the food processor. We use 20 g of the ground hazelnuts for the tart dough and 50 g of them for the hazelnut cream.
Then we prepare a portion of sweet short crust dough (see NOTE 1) using the amounts of ingredients given here and substituting the 20 g ground almonds of the basic recipe for 20 g of ground hazelnuts. After the prepared dough has chilled in the fridge, we roll out to a 2 – 3 mm disc and line a 20 cm tart ring, previously well greased (you will find a detailed guide on how to perfectly line and form a tart shell in our relevant article – see NOTE 2). We keep in the fridge.
While the tart shell is resting in the fridge, we prepare the hazelnut cream. Hazelnut cream is made the exact same way we make the almond cream (see NOTE 3 for the basic recipe), substituting the 50 g of ground almonds for 50 g of ground hazelnuts. We set aside.
We take the tart shell out of the fridge, prick the surface with a fork and place it in a preheated oven at 185-190 o C (static function). After 3 minutes, we lower the heat to 155-160 and continue baking for another 10-11 minutes, then we remove from the oven and let it cool for about 30 minutes.
Once the tart shell has cooled, we spread on top the hazelnut cream (halfway up the tart shell, because it will swell a little) level it, return the tart to the oven and continue baking for another 10 minutes. We let the tart cool completely on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, we prepare the creamy ganache. In a bowl suitable for bain-marie, we place the chocolate broken into small pieces and set aside.
We prepare a crème anglaise (see HERE for the basic recipe), with the above ratios for the ingredients. You will need 200-250 g of crème anglaise, according on how thick and hard you want the ganache to be. If you prefer that it hardens enough when cooling, use a 1:1 ratio (200 g crème anglaise / 200 g chocolate). If you like it more creamy, we 250 g crème anglaise for 200 chocolate.
As soon as the crème anglaise thickens, we immediately remove it from the bain marie and poor it over the broken chocolate in three batches.
After pouring the first batch, we let the chocolate steep in the hot cream for a few minutes, before stirring. Then we mix vigorously to completely melt the chocolate and combine it with the custard sauce. We add the two remaining batches of the cream, stirring constantly to incorporate it in the chocolate.
We let the ganache cool a little bit (about 15 min) and then we spread it all over the tart and level it with a spatula. Don’ t let it cool completely, because it will harden and then it will not be possible to spread it. If this happens, though, you can simply place the bowl over bain-marie for a few minutes to rewarm it. It will become creamy and spreadable again.
To make the caramelized hazelnuts, we place in a saucepan 30 g of sugar and a few lemon drops to make a dry caramel. We add the lemon drops to prevent crystalizing of the sugar. Glucose syrup can be used instead, but I prefer more “natural” solutions. We add the remaining 30 g of whole roasted hazelnuts, and heat until sugar melts, then we stir the hazelnuts rolling them all over the sugar to “sand” them. The “white sand” will gradually disappear. When sugar turns to a light auburn caramel, we transfer the nuts onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, let them cool and separate eventual glued nuts.
We decorate the tart with caramelized hazelnuts and candied orange peels (see NOTE 4), cut in julienne stripes.
NOTE: See how to make your own sweet short (sucrèe) dough in the following link here
NOTE 2: Υou will find a detailed guide on how to perfectly line and form a tart shell here
NOTE 3: To prepare your own nut cream, read our relevant article in the following link here
NOTE 4: To make your own candied orange peels, you can follow our directions given in the following link here
