Tuesday, February 21, 2012

TWD -- Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

Just as I was weighing the best technique to make the chocolate dough for the truffle tartlets for my second Tuesdays with Dorie experiment, Father Paul's voice sounded in my ear loud and clear: DON"T USE THE FOOD PROCESSOR! Father Paul is the baker-in-charge at the Catholic Shrine and Basilica Bakery in Carey, Ohio, where I volunteer. He is a die-hard advocate of always working the fat and flour together with your fingers. So, following his advice, I did it his way. It wasn't hard and it didn't take any longer than hauling out the food processor and washing it up after the dough is completed.


After the dough had been refrigerated the requisite time, I weighed the entire piece of dough, divided that by 6 and found that each piece of dough should weigh 2 3/8 ounces. I then rolled the dough using very little flour and a pasty cloth and rolling pin cover. This is also a Father Paul technique and one I've adhered to for almost 50 years.
I found that you had to treat the dough with care. I moved it from the pastry cloth to the tartlet pans (I did not remove the bottoms) with a bench scraper. After baking the crusts, the rest of the recipe was easy. I had previously made chocolate chip biscotti and that was a learning experience. After making three batches (all jaw breakers), I learned from my daughter that a small amount of fat in a biscotti recipe will make it far less hard. I used an ice cream scoop to fill the tartlets, but found it took about two scoops, not one, to fill each pan. I baked the tartlets for the full time.

Now, the appearance and taste. I thought the tarts were attractive, more elegant certainly than a wedge of pie, and would be nice served for company. But, were they perhaps too big for one person to eat after a meal? My husband and I split one, and that was plenty. And, the taste wasn't quite as over-the-top as I expected. In a nutshell: I prefer my favorite chocolate pie recipe -- Aunt Catfish's Boat Sinker pie.  Here is a link to that recipe: http://community.tasteofhome.com/community_forums/f/33/t/744838.aspx

What to do with all those left-over egg whites? I am freezing some to use as "glue" to adhere seeds to whole grain breads. I am also going to make meringue cookies with four of them. There are lots of recipes for meringue cookies on the internet. I think I'll try peanut butter. And, then, of course, there is always angel food cake.

8 comments:

  1. I am definitely a fan of putting some butter into a biscotti recipe. It really does help the texture.

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  2. I did my dough in the food processor. It was fairly easy to pull together...I did add more than the one tablespoon of water. Your Tartlets look beautiful! We cut ours in half. One was just too big for any of us!

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  3. I admit, I used the food processor to make my dough.
    Absoltuely agree that these were too much for one person. It's funny that you brought up the rolling pin cover - I was just talking with my mother about how you don't see those often anymore.

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  4. I love that I'm not the only one who divided my dough using a kitchen scale! And I agree, I wasn't thrilled with the tartlets. I think I just expected more.

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  5. Another good use for those egg whites can be found in Dorie's book, "Around my French Table". Coconut Friands are cute little cookie-ish mini tarts baked in a mini-muffin pan. Very easy and quite yummy.

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  6. I mixed the dough by hand, it was therapeutic :) The tarts turned out wonderfully, very rich couldn't eat a whole one. Will be freezing a few to see how they hold up. Here's a link to my blog

    http://bygore.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/chocolate-truffle-tartlets-from-baking-with-julia/

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  7. Ah yes, I forgot to mention in my post, but I did the same thing with my egg whites. While I might not trouble to save a lone egg white, I couldn't justify tossing so many of them, so I borrowed a Nigella trick and saved them in pairs in ziplock bags in the freezer.

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  8. I used the food processor too...but I did work the dough by hand for a bit to get it to come together:) I made an egg white omelet.

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