The introduction of 24/7 food television in the aughts, and the rise of the celebrity chef, led to a more ambitious style of home cooking. These mini-tarts are a good example. They’re not difficult or especially time-consuming, but with their hazelnut shortbread base, chocolate ganache, and raspberry garnish—eating in season was not yet de rigueur—they pack a tremendous “wow” factor. Amy Traverso developed the recipe in 2002, during her first tenure as Yankee’s food editor.
Yield:
24 tartletsIngredients
1-1/2 cups whole hazelnuts
1 stick (8 tablespoons) salted butter, softened
1/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups miniature semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 pint raspberries
Garnish: confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
Mist 2 mini-muffin tins with cooking spray and set aside. In the bowl of a food processor, chop the hazelnuts to the texture of coarse sand. Using a standing or handheld mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar in a large bowl 1 minute. Add the flour and chopped hazelnuts, and mix briefly until the dough forms a ball. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.
Meanwhile, make the filling: Pour the chocolate chips into a heat-safe mixing bowl. In a heavy saucepan, heat the cream on medium-high until it just begins to simmer. Remove from the heat, and pour the hot cream over the chocolate chips. Stir steadily until all the chocolate is melted. Keep warm.
Preheat your oven to 350° and set a rack to the middle position. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Form 2 teaspoons of dough into a ball, and press into a cup of the mini-muffin tin, creating a well for the filling with your thumb. Repeat with the remaining dough. Bake shells until golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through.
If the dough has puffed during baking, gently press down with a spoon. When the shells are cool, turn and lift carefully to remove from the pans. Using a pastry bag (or a plastic zip-top sandwich bag with a hole cut in one corner), neatly pipe the ganache into the shells, until almost filled.
Press a whole raspberry, upside down, into the ganache. Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Tartlets are best when served within 24 hours.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
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