Chocolate and Cherry Mascarpone Tarts

 

Chocolate and Cherry Mascarpone Tarts

Ingredients

Pastry:

• 160g plain flour
• 115g unsalted butter
• 70g icing sugar
• 20g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg yolk

Cherries:

• 350g cherries 
• 50g sugar

Mascarpone Cream:

• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 200ml double cream

Method:

Pastry:

1. In a food processor, blitz the butter, flour, icing sugar, cocoa and vanilla extract until it looks like breadcrumbs. 
2. Add the egg yolk and continue to blitz until it just comes together and forms a dough. Keep an eye on it and don't blitz any further than this or you will overwork the pastry! 
3. Squeeze the dough together and form into a ball, then wrap in cling film and and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour.
4. (meanwhile you can prepare the cherries!) 
5. Grease 4x deep 4 inch mini tart tins (this amount of dough should also work for an 8 inch tart case)
6. One the dough has rested, lightly dust the counter with flour and split the dough in half.
7. Roll the first piece of dough out to around 4mm thick and carefully line the first tart tin, cutting away the excess, ensuring there are no gaps, and pricking the bottom with a fork. 
8. Roll up the excess dough and repeat to line another tin.
9. Repeat with the other half of the dough until all 4 are lined with pastry. 
10. Prick the bottom of each lined tart tin with a fork and leave them in the fridge to rest for another 30 minutes. 
11. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 180 C (fan).
12. Once the cases are chilled, line with baking paper and fill with baking beans. 
13. Blind bake the pastry for 10 minutes, then remove the baking beans and bake for a further 5 minutes. As this pastry is chocolate it an be hard to check the colour change during the bake, so make sure you keep an eye on it! 
14. Once baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tins, then leave to cool fully. 

Cherries:

1. Destone the cherries (reserve a few for decoration if you wish)
2. Add the cherries and sugar to a saucepan over a medium heat, and simmer for 20 minutes, allowing the fruit to become soft and release juice. 
3. Allow to cool fully. 

1. Mix the mascarpone, vanilla extract and icing sugar together until smooth. 
2. Whisk the cream to soft peaks and then add to the mascarpone, mixing thoroughly until it is fully combined. 

1. Fill the tart cases with the mascarpone cream, and then a generous helping of the cherries and their syrup. 
2. Top with leftover cherries! 
3. Enjoy!