Chocolate Caramel Tartlets

Every Fall, my church group has a big event to welcome the new people that have moved in for the school year. The men are in charge of cooking food for this event, and to ensure that they actually do it, it's a friendly competition. Competitions are great for potlucks - obviously the competition encourages good food, but perhaps more importantly, it incentivizes overproduction, so that there is always enough food. If you want to win, you need lots of votes, which means you want lots of people to try your entry, which means you want to make lots of food. It's a great tradition.

I fell in love with making my own caramel last Spring - the flavor of homemade caramel is shockingly bold, much more assertive than the stuff you find in the store. I decided then that I would use my newfound love for caramel to enter the dessert competition. And I wanted to win, since this is my last year in the area.

I've watched the winners of this competition in the past, and noticed that not only did they produce large amounts of food, but they made food that was easy to serve in small portions. I'll never forget the time that some well meaning guy brought a beautifully roasted chicken. It sat there, unmolested, while all two hundred people filed past it. No one had the conviction to start slicing it up, not while there was so much other good food nearby that was so much easier to grab. Caramel is soft and sticky, which presents an obstacle. I decided the caramel needed to be in bitesized portions that could be picked up by hand. And chocolate is always a good thing in competitions.

There was only one thing that satisfies my requirements: chocolate caramel tartlets. I adapted a recipe from Saveur, which took a lot of practice during the Summer to perfect. It was very happy practice, though. People seemed to really love my tartlets, and I ended up winning the vote! Even over some other very worthy entries like Theric's Snicker Doodle Family. I made them again this week to proof my recipe, and also to bring them to work. My boss said they were an interesting cross between a candy bar and a cookie. He ate three, which is a lot, since these things are power-packed. The secretary said hers was one of the best brownie-things she's ever had. I had never thought of tartlets as being even close to candy bars, cookies, or brownies, but actually they do share some characteristics...

Here's the recipe. Note that the tartlets are formed in silicone minimuffin pans. I'm not sure they would work very well in metal pans, the crust is very thin and delicate in order to maximize the caramel.


For the crust:
3/4 cup flour
2 1/2 tablespoons dutch process cocoa
5 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and softened
1 egg yolk at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the caramel:
2 cups sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup (to keep the caramel from crystallizing)

For the ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Make the crust: Combine flour, cocoa powder and salt, set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until the mixture is pale and fluffy; mix in yolk and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper until very thin, approximately 2 millimeters thick. Place dough (still inside parchment paper) in freezer for 5 minutes. Remove dough from freezer and pull off both sheets of parchment paper to prevent dough from sticking once it melts. Using a thin, flexible metal spatula and working quickily, cut the dough into strips about 2 centimeters tall. Line 24 silicone mini-muffin tins with dough and press to form shells. As dough melts, it will get sticky and hard to work with, return to freezer to cool it back down if necessary. Place shells back in freezer for 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove shells from freezer, prick the bottoms of the shells with a fork, and immediately bake for 10 minutes. Take the shells out and let them cool on a rack.

Make the caramel: Have the butter and cream out and premeasured before you start the sugar cooking. Put the sugar and corn syrup in a heavy saucepan, add about 1/2 cup water and mix. The water will boil out, so the exact amount isn't crucial, it just helps to keep the sugar from burning unevenly as it melts. Heat the sugar on medium high heat, stirring infrequently. After the water boils away, the sugar will be molten and boiling as well. Once the water is boiled off, the melted sugar will form viscous bubbles, and when it reaches this stage, you shouldn't stir it at all. You can swirl the sugar in the pan occasionally, but it’s best not to disturb it too much if you want to avoid crystallized caramel later. Watch the sugar carefully until it gets to a dark amber color. I had to practice this many times to get it just right: if you don't let it brown enough, the caramel will be flavorless. If you let it get too brown, the caramel will taste burnt. When you've decided it looks about right, immediately add all the butter and whisk until it’s dissolved. Remove from heat, count to three, and then whisk in the cream. The mixture will boil up quite a bit. Keep whisking until the caramel settles down and is smooth.

Fill the shells with caramel. Put the shells in the refrigerator until caramel has solidified.

Make the ganache: bring the cream just to barely bubbling over medium heat, without stirring. If you heat it too much, it will curdle, and the ganache won't be smooth. Take off heat, add chocolate. Let sit for 1 minute, then stir with spatula until smooth. Top all the tartlets with ganache, and refrigerate until ganache is set. If ganache is too thin, it will crack during cooling.

Sprinkle with sea salt right before serving - the tartlets are best served chilled. Enjoy!