Chocolate Custard Tarts

Making chocolate custard tarts from store bought puff pastry should be an easy enough thing, yes? 

Not if you are making them on a humid afternoon. It was so hot, the dough started melting the minute I took it out of the freezer. I quickly cut the dough into small pieces and put them back in the freezer to chill. I had to take one piece of dough from the freezer, roll it into a round, push the round into the muffin tin , put muffin tin back into the freezer. Now repeat the same process 36 times. I ended up with delicious tarts that everyone loved and the worst backache in recent memory. Note to self: next time, just make a chocolate custard pie. 

Chocolate Custard Tarts

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
¼ cup castor sugar
2 tbsp cornflour, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 ml light cream
½ cup water
150g dark chocolate, finely chopped (for a sweeter custard, substitute 50g with milk chocolate)
2 sheets puff pastry
icing sugar for dusting

Chocolate Custard:
Whisk egg yolks, sugar, corn flour and vanilla until smooth. Add the light cream and water and whisk again.
Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook over medium to low heat. Stir until the mixture is thick, taking care not to scorch the custard.
Remove from heat, add the chocolate in a few batches. Stir until the chocolate has melted and the custard is smooth. Set aside to cool

Tart Shell:
Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
Place the sheets of puff pastry on top of each other and roll up.
For a medium tart, cut the dough into 18 slices and roll out into rounds 10cm in diameter. Lightly grease a 6 bun and a 12 bun ½ cup muffin tin and push each round into the individual holes.
For a small tart, cut the dough into 36 slices and roll out into rounds 5cm in diameter. Use three 12 bun ¼ cup muffin tins.
Place the muffin tins in the freezer for 10 minutes to chill the dough. Remove and divide custard mixture evenly between the tart shells. For the medium tart, it is about 1 tablespoon of custard per tart. For the small tart, it is ½ tablespoon of custard. If you are baking in batches, put the custard in the tart shells just before placing in the oven.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before removing. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Comments

[fish fish]

Wei ST... I think those who had the tarts are lucky. Cause it's full of 'pain' inside. It looks great. Otsukaresama deshita.

[Reid]

Hi ST,

They look yummy! Glad you took the time to make them and to share your experience! =)

[julia]

hey ST, as the saying goes, "No pain, no gain". No wonder the tarts look so yummy. There was a lot of "pain" in making them. Thanks for sharing!

[pinkcocoa]

I second Julia!
That's a lot of work you have put into making this yummilicous & chocolicious tart! Wish I could have one.....

[ST]

Thanks guys, I am thinking of using a pastry cutter to cut out rounds the next time I make this. Then I do not have to roll the dough and obsess about getting the perfect rounds.

[Ellen Jagar]

Have you ever tried carob in place of chocolate? I made this recipe with carob from Holy Food Imports and my family absolutely loved the recipe.