Chocolate Covered Date and Almond Tarts

jgraham

This is my inside-out version of a recipe for chocolate covered dates stuffed with almonds recipe from the Green and Blacks cookbook. The combination of all the sunny Mediterranean flavours makes for a welcome respite from the hash Scandinavian winters.

For the pastry:

175g plain flour
30g ground almonds
65g icing sugar
Pinch salt
125g cold, unsalted butter
2 egg yolks, beaten with a tablespoon of water

For the filling:
120g ground almonds
2 large eggs
30g caster sugar
60g light brown sugar
110g unsalted butter
pinch salt
1 orange
8 Medjool dates
80g chocolate
Icing sugar

1. First make the pastry. Place the flour, ground almonds and icing sugar into a food processor and pulse a few times to combine.

2. Dice the butter into about 1cm cubes. Place in the food processor and process till combined into a loose, crumbly mixture.

3. Add the beaten egg, a tablespoon at time, pulsing after each addition. Stop adding the egg as the mixture starts to come together into a coherent ball. You might not need all the egg.

4. Remove the pastry from the food processor, pat together into a fat sausage shape and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. While waiting for the pastry to cool, grease 8 slots in a metal muffin tray

6. After the pastry has cooled, remove it from the fridge and roll out. Cut discs of pastry large enough to line one hole in the muffin tray. Press the pastry discs carefully into the tray, being careful not to leave any gaps.

7. Place the muffin tray in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

8. Preheat the oven to 180ºC

9. Carefully cut a slit in each date and remove the stone.

10. Melt the chocolate and 20g of the butter in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.

11. Thoroughly coat each date in the meted chocolate. Then place the chocolate covered dates in the fridge to set.

13. To make the frangipane whisk together the eggs with the caster sugar and the brown sugar.

14. Melt the remaining butter and pour this slowly into the egg/sugar mix continually whisking as you do so.

15. Mix in the zest and half the juice of the orange along with the ground almonds.

16. Remove the pastry cases and dates from the fridge. Place one date in the botom of each case and filly to the top with frangipane.

17. Bake for 20 minutes (covering if the top becomes brown).

18. To finish mix some icing sugar with the rest of the orange juice to make a paste. Place the icing on top of the tarts, and finely grate over some chocolate.

---

View Project: