Macadamia Praline Tart (& some other little tarts)

Yesterday I decided to devote a lot of the day to the kitchen, as I had a full day all to myself.  I needed to make a cake for someone's birthday ready for next week, but I also wanted to play with my French cookbook!

So first thing first, I found a recipe that reports to be from Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes, and it's the chocolate cake that the little boy is forced to eat in front of the whole school for stealing food from the kitchen (I think I got that right?), in Matilda.  I didn't know there was a real recipe out there for it until I had a nosey around t'interweb and it's right here.

This was to be a chocolate orange cake, so I added the zest of three large oranges and one teaspoon of orange extract.  The cake is now in the freezer, ready to be iced with some rather delicious ganache and topped off with some chocolate orange truffles (if there's enough ganache leftover!).  So a photo will be forthcoming once it's all done, dusted and devoured.

Now then, from the fabulous French cookbook I wanted to try something I've never made before and I settled on crème pâtissière.  I like a challenge so I decided to attempt choux buns for the first time since A level Home Economics.  Unfortunately I didn't trust my instincts with the number of eggs to use, and it all went a bit wrong.  I followed the recipe to the letter and although I knew before I cooked them that they'd be wrong and flat and impossible to fill, I went ahead and baked them anyway.  They're now in the bin.  Next time I'm listening to my instincts, you mark my words!

So the choux pastry was a disaster, but I ran out of eggs and quite frankly I was too lazy to go and buy more.  Instead I made a sweet shortcrust pastry case, and a plan formed.

I couldn't just put crème pâtissière into a tart with nothing else; it needed jazzing up a bit.  So I made macadamia nut praline for some texture and, quite honestly, addictive nutty heaven!  How any of it ended up in the tart I'll never know.

That wasn't enough, though.  I tested some offcuts of pastry with the praline and crème pâtissière and it needed something extra; something stronger to compliment the flavours and wake up the taste buds with a bang.

And so my Macadamia Praline Tart was born:

Sweet pastry case with a thin layer of dark chocolate, a layer of ground macadamia praline, filled with crème pâtissière, topped with more ground macadamia praline and some bigger chunks (again for the texture), and topped off with some drizzled dark chocolate.



Macadamia Praline Tart

 I'm no longer annoyed that the choux buns didn't work, because otherwise this delight would never have been created.  It was and still is just... sigh... bloody lovely!

I did also have some pastry leftover, so I got out my mini tart tin and my pastry tamper (used for the first time, how exciting!), and with leftover chocolate, a little cream and the rest of the ground macadamia praline, I made some tiny and very chocolatey tarts.


Chocolate Macadmia Tartlets


With the rest of the little tarts I put in a layer of apricot conserve, and topped it with a disc of marzipan before baking.  Oh, they're tasty little morsels.  Perfect with a cuppa.

Apricot & Almond Tartlets

The little tarts are great tasters, but the star of yesterday was definitely the Macadamia Praline Tart.  Next time I may add a little salt to the praline, just to lift the whole thing a tiny bit more.

I'll attempt choux buns again, and next time I will succeed.  And in the unlikely event that I don't (!), I'll still come out with something edible at the end, even if it's just a big bowl of posh custard and a feckin big spoon!

Now then, I think it might be time for a cuppa and a tasty little morsel...