Raspberries & Pistachios Tartlets

Credits and General Info:

• To start, these tartlets are made using several components (with minor alterations here and there) taken from different recipes from these 2 fantastic French Pâtissiers: AurelienCohen and C'est ma fournée . Links to their website (in french)!.

• I have added links to equipment or ingredients I use. These are non-affiliated links.

Quantities.

1 x 24cm tart ring or 6-8 x 7cm tartlets.

Pastry quantities below are for 2 x 24cm ring. I always make a double batch of the pastry and freeze half.

Ingredients

• For the Pastry - Make the day before

  • 220g all purpose flour

  • 130g softened Unsalted butter

  • 50g whole egg

  • A pinch of salt.

  • 85g icing sugar

  • 30g ground almond or almond flour.

  • Egg Wash: 20g Egg yolk and 5g double cream (refer the Equipment section to see why you need a precision scale in your life!).

• Pistachio Paste - Make the day before

  • 75 g shelled raw unsalted pistachios (1)

  • 19 g shelled raw unsalted pistachios (2)

  • 15 g icing sugar

  • 1 small pinch of salt

  • 1-2 Tbsp of neutral oil (optional)

• Pistachio Namelaka - Make the day before.

  • 85 g white Callebaut W2 chocolate

  • 1 g gelatin - I only use 200 Bloom powdered fish gelatin (no, it does not taste or smell fish!) which I get online from Labo & Gato

  • 50 g whole milk

  • 100 g double cream

  • 20 g pistachio paste (made above)

• Raspberry Compote - Make the day before

  • 200 g raspberries - fresh or frozen defrosted

  • 11 g fresh lemon juice

  • 30 g caster sugar (1)

  • 12 g caster sugar (2)

  • 3.8 g pectin NH - I use powdered pectin NH which I get online from Labo&Gato

• Almond & Pistachio cream.

  • 40g of very soft unsalted butter, but not melted

  • 40g caster sugar

  • 20g ground almonds

  • 20g ground pistachios

  • 40g whole egg

  • 20g of double cream

• Decoration

  • 300-350g fresh raspberries

    
    

Specific Equipment Needed

• Tart / Tartlet Perforated Rings - I use these "Round tart ring", "Oblong Tart ring", "tartlet ring"

• Perforated baking tray and perforated silicone mat.

• Dual kitchen scale with a precision scale - I cannot emphasis enough the importance in patisserie to use the correct quantities even the tiny ones. I have my precision scale for years (and i mean yyyyeeaaars!). This is the 1st scale I bought for myself and never had to replace it yet.

• Stand Mixer with a K-Beater

• Food Processor.

• Blender

Preparing the Pastry

If, like me, you are not on best term with pastry and use to hate making tart just at the thought of having to line the tart ring, this pastry recipe is for you! it is so forgiving, easy to work with etc. It's lovely and crunchy and stay crunchy the next day. I use my stand mixer with the k-beater and this recipe comes together in less than a minute!

• Sieve the icing sugar and ground almond together.

• In the bowl of the stand mixer, add the flour with softened unsalted butter and mix on low speed till flour ressemble coarse sand. You do not want to mix too long or too high speed as you do not want to form big lumps. Approx 20 sec

• Add the egg and salt and mix on low speed till the dough form a block. Approx another 20 sec.

• Finally add the Icing sugar and ground almond. Mix till homogenous, another 20 sec or so. And done!

• Roll in a ball, flatten slightly, cover in the clingfilm and leave in the fridge overnight. If I use a frozen batch, I take the pastry the day before baking and leave to defrost overnight in the fridge.

Making the Pistachio Paste

This is to be used in the Pistachio Namelaka below. I imagine we could use commercial pistachio paste (which will likely be smoother and more runny than the one made at home unless you have one of these professional grinder thingy), I just never tried! The leftover paste keeps in the fridge for a while. I like mixing some with Fage Yogurt and use as pancakes topping. You could also use it with whip cream and crushed meringue nest to make a super quick Pistachio/Berries Eton mess...

• Toast quantity (1) of the pistachio in a pan on low heat for 5-10mins. Careful not to burn the pistachios.

• In a mixer with blade attachement, add the toasted pistachios along with the Pistachio quantity (2), the sugar and salt.

• Mix to a "smooth" paste... as I mentioned above, my paste was not super smooth. I did use a little neutral oil to "thin" a bit to help the blending. So it was not smooth, runny and silky like the ones we can buy in the shop but it did the job just fine and tasted amazing!

Making the Pistachio Namelaka

I leave you to google Namelaka if you never had any but think smooth, silky and yet light cream. It's divine!

• Mix the 1g powdered fish gelatin with 6g of water.

• Gently melt the white chocolate in a bain-marie. For some reasons, I'm not a fan of the microwave to melt white chocolate. But feel free to use a microwave if you prefer.

• In a small saucepan, on a gentle heat, bring the milk to a boil. When the milk is boiling, add the gelatin (it will have absorbed the water to create like a "block of gelatin". Mix together till gelatin is fully incorporated.

• Pour hot milk/gelatin mixture on the melted chocolate and stir together.

• Add the cold cream along with the pistachio paste and use a blender to mix it all to a silky smooth consistency.

• Pour in a dish, cover with clingfilm ensuring that it comes into contact with the surface of the cream. When cool, store in the fridge till next day.

Making the Raspberry Compote

I have been making these compotes for years. I must prefer them in desserts, cakes etc than the jam which I find too sweet. If you need convincing, make a victoria sponge replacing the jam with a strawberry compote (recipe to follow in another post)! and that's all I'm going to say about that!.

• I LOVE Raspberries! I HATE raspberries seeds!! so if you are like me, mix the raspberries into a blender and push through a sieve to collect all the pulp and discard the seeds. If the seeds don't bother you, go straight to the next step.

• In a small saucepan, gently heat together the raspberries, lemon juice and quantity (1) of caster sugar. Cook for 5mins stirring occasionally.

• Mix the pectin NH with the quantity (2) of caster sugar.

• Add to the saucepan, mix well and bring to a boil for 1min.

• If you have skipped step 1, your compote will not be smooth. The raspberries will have broken down but you will still have pieces. You can use as is or blend till smooth if you prefer.

• Pour into a shallow dish, cover with clingfilm ensuring the film touches the surface of the compote. When cool, put in the fridge for the night.

Baking the Tart/ Tartlets

I will do a tart (soon!) and try to remember to take photos when lining the tarts with the pastry. In the meantime, I invite you to check Aurelien Cohen tutorials which are absolutely brilliant. Website is in french but he's got loads of photos. I learned using his tutorials. I use his technique # 1. As I said above, I found the pastry to be easy to handle, tears are rare (very rare) and easy to "fix".

• Take the pastry out of the fridge and Roll between 2 sheets of clingfilm to approx 3.5 - 4mm.

• Be quick about it! the colder the pastry, the easier to work/handle and the less risk it may tear.

• At this point, you can place the rolled pastry for 10min in the freezer to let it firm up again after the rolling. Again it will be easier to handle then.

• Cut 10-12cm discs for the 7cm tartlet rings or 27-28cm disc for the large 24cm tart ring. When I started making tarts, I found it easier to have a bigger disc to work with. The edges will be trimmed later anyway and as I mentioned above, this pastry recipe allows for scraps to be re-rolled to line additional tart rings.

• Spray the rings with release spray and line the tart / tartlets ring(s). Press down gently on the sides and in the corner to form a nice angle. With a sharp knife, trim the edges just like you've seen the pro do it on Insta!

• Place the lined ring(s) on the perforated baking sheet lined with the perforated mat. Place in the fridge for an hour or freezer for 20mins.

• Pre-heat oven 150DegC fan assisted. Take pastry out of the freezer, poke holes with a fork all over and cook blank (as is) for 20mins.

• In the meantime, make the Almond/Pistachio Cream:

  • Whisk the butter to a paste.

  • Add the sugar and ground Almond/Pistachio and mix well together.

  • At this point, mix gently and only to just combine the ingredients. Do not over work the mixture or it will puff up in the oven. Add the egg beaten and cream and mix to combine.

• When the shells are ready, carefully and gently remove the ring(s). Careful it will be hot!

• Brush the outside of the shells and the edges with the egg wash and cook for a further 5mins.

• Take the shells out and add a thin layer of almond/pistachio cream (not too much, you need to leave room for the other fillings). At this point I turn the oven temp to 140deg C and put back in the oven for a further 20-25mins.

• When ready, leave to cool down for 5-10mins on the baking tray and then leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Assembling and Finishing

• Take the Namelaka cream out of the fridge, give it a good whisk and Pipe in each shell (not all the way to the top now; you need room for the compote layer!) and smooth out with a palette knife.

• At this point, you may put the tartlets 10mins in the freezer but I don't bother. I just go very gently when spreading my compote.

• Take the compote out of the fridge, give it a good whisk and gently spread in a thin layer on top of the pistachio Namelaka.

• Put in the freezer for 10mins or so while you get your decoration stuff ready.

• Decorate as you desire using the fresh Raspberries. Add/sprinkle some crushed pistachio (optional). I also sprinkle the tinniest amount of icing sugar on the berries to give them a bit of a "shine"!

I leave the tart/tartlets in the fridge and take it/them out approx 15mins before serving. I personally do not think they need anything to accompany them and I serve them as is. I cover the leftovers (if any) with a clingfilm and store in the fridge. It will still be perfect the next day. In the unlikely event that you still have some left, the tart remain delicious on day 2 even if the berries will start to "look tired" at this point. Enjoy!

Post photos on Insta, flaunt pics of your tarts for the world to see and tag me @EssieMakes.