Chilli and lime dark chocolate tarts

In the second round of the baking competition at work, I baked another invention of mine: sweet pastry tarts, filled with a dark chocolate ganache flavoured with chilli and lime, and decorated with candied chillies.

They didn't do very well with the judges — they thought there was too much chocolate filling and/or it was too rich, and they found the candied chillies too spicy. On the other hand, the whole batch got eaten, so it's not all bad news.

This time-consuming and labour-intensive recipe makes 8 tarts.

Ingredients

For the candied chillies:

1. 1/2 cup water
2. 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1 lime
4. 2 mild chillies

For the pastry cases:

1. 250 g plain flour
2. 35 g icing sugar
3. 140 g cold unsalted butter
4. 2 egg yolks
5. 1.5 tbsp cold water

For the chilli and lime dark chocolate ganache filling:

1. 100 ml double cream
2. 25 g caster sugar
3. 100 g dark chocolate
4. 12 g butter
5. 2 limes
6. 2 bird's eye chillies

Candied chillies

Make the candied chillies first — they keep for ages, so you can make them a good while in advance.

Cut the chillies into thin, circular slices, and remove the seeds (tweezers are useful). Take the peel of about a quarter of a lime, and slice it into strips as thinly as possible.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the water and sugar to make a syrup. When it gets to the boil, carefully add the lime peel and chilli slices and simmer for 20 mins.

Strain the sugar syrup to remove the chilli and lime — save the syrup for later — and lay the pieces out on a silicone baking sheet. Bake in the oven for an hour at about 90 °C, until they are dry to the touch.

Sweet pastry cases

Put the the flour, icing sugar and butter in a food processor and pulse a few times until the mixture becomes about the consistency of breadcrumbs. Add the yolks and cold water and pulse until the mixture comes together. You may need to add a tiny bit more water. Knead the pastry a couple of times — literally only enough that it comes together into a ball — then wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge to chill for about an hour.

Clear a shelf in the fridge and prepare 8 individual-size pastry tins (about 7.5–8 cm diameter).

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions. Roll each piece out to about 15 cm diameter and carefully place them in the pastry tins, pushing it out to fill the corners. If any holes appear, push them back together again. There should be 2&ndash cm of excess pastry protruding from the edges of the tin; trim back any much more than this.

Prick the bottom of each case with a fork and place them in the fridge to chill for at least an hour. By making sure that the cases are well rested you will avoid the need to use baking beans.

Preheat the oven to 180 °C (fan) and place a baking train the oven to heat. When the pastry cases are rested, place them directly onto the hot baking tray and into the oven, and bake for approx. 12 min until golden. Be very careful that the pastry doesn't catch!

When pastry cases come out of the oven, immediately trim the excess pastry from the cases before they become brittle, using a sharp knife. Leave them to cool in the tins on a cooling rack.

Chilli and lime chocolate ganache filling

Finely chop the chillies and zest the limes.

Place the cream, sugar, chillies and half the lime zest in a saucepan. Warm over a low heat. (The longer you infuse the cream, the stronger the filling will be).

Meanwhile, break the chocolate into pieces. Put the chocolate, butter and remaining lime zest in a mixing bowl.

When the cream is almost at boiling point, strain it onto the chocolate and butter. Whisk the mixture slowly until the chocolate and butter has melted and the ganache is smooth and glossy. If the chocolate doesn't quite melt, heat the mixing bowl over a pan of hot water (but make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water!)

If the filling isn't strong enough, you can add a couple of teaspoons of the chilli sugar syrup left over from making the candied chillies earlier.

While the ganache is still warm, carefully spoon it into the pastry cases. Decorate with the candied chillies.

N.b. the ganache will take at least a couple of hours to set; you can put it in the fridge to help it along, but it may make the top lose its glossy finish.