My Chocolate Tartlets are made with sweet pastry cases filled with a chocolate ganache and topped with fresh strawberries. They are easier than they look and are perfect for making ahead. You can keep the pastry or the baked shells in the fridge for days, so the only job left is the ganache.
I make these Mini Chocolate Strawberry Tarts in small tart tins. If you do not have any, a muffin pan works, though the sides come out straight rather than fluted.
One batch makes 10 tartlets. That is enough for a small party and they are easy to hand round.
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Why This Recipe Works?
- The strawberries cut through the ganache, so they do not taste as heavy as they look.
- Everything is made in stages, so nothing has to happen on the day except adding the strawberries.
- Use whatever chocolate you like. I use a mix of milk and dark because we like it on the sweet side, and the tips below tell you how much cream to use with each so it sets every time.
- No strawberries? Use raspberries, cherries, or any fruit in season that you like with chocolate.
Ingredients You'll Need
Please scroll down to the recipe card below for the full ingredients list with measurements, complete recipe method, recipe notes, and nutritional information.
- Butter - Unsalted, and properly soft. Cold butter will not cream with the sugar.
- Plain white flour - Known as all-purpose. Do not use bread flour, it makes the shells tough and shrink. Sift it.
- Sugar - Caster or superfine. Granulated stays gritty. Icing sugar works and gives a crisper pastry.
- Egg - Room temperature. A cold egg splits the creamed butter.
- Lemon zest - Only the yellow part, the pith is bitter. Leave it out and add an extra teaspoon of vanilla paste if you prefer.
- Chocolate - I use 70% dark mixed with milk. Cooking or couverture chocolate, not chips, which will not melt smoothly.
- Vanilla paste - I use vanilla bean paste or extract. Avoid artificial vanilla here.
- Cream - Double or heavy cream. Reduced fat cream will not set into a ganache.
How to Make Chocolate Strawberry Tartlets
Prepare the Sweet Pastry Dough (Pâte Sucrée)
In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and sugar on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until pale and creamy.
Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix for another 20 seconds.
Add the egg, vanilla paste, salt, and lemon zest. Beat on low speed until the yolk is evenly incorporated and the mixture is clumpy, for about 30 seconds.
Add the sifted flour and mix on low speed for about a minute, until the flour is incorporated. The mixture will look like wet, clumpy sand.
Using your hand, lightly knead the dough into a ball inside the bowl. You can transfer the dough to your worktop to knead it if easier, but make sure not to overwork the pastry.
Turn the dough into a ball and then roll it between two sheets of baking paper, about 3 mm (⅛") thick. Place on a flat tray and leave to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.
Take the dough out of the fridge, remove the baking paper and cut out 10 rounds of pastry using a small knife. A round or fluted cookie cutter works well here.
Gently slide the pastries into the small tart tins, lightly pressing the edge between the bottom and the sides to remove any air bubbles. Mine are 8 cm (3 inch) tins.
Ease the pastry in rather than pulling it to fit. Stretching it is what makes shells shrink in the oven.
Prick the bottom of the pastries with a fork to stop them rising, then put them back in the fridge to rest for another hour.
Bake the Tartlet Shells
Preheat your oven to 170° C (340° F) and place the tart tins in the freezer in the meantime.
Line each tartlet shell with a paper cupcake case, baking paper, or heatproof cling film. Fill it right to the brim with baking beads, rice, beans, or chickpeas, which holds the sides up as the pastry sets. Ordinary cling film is not oven safe, so check the box.
Bake the shells for 15 minutes with the weights in, then lift out the lining and weights together. Give them another 8 to 12 minutes uncovered, until they are deep golden and dry to the touch.
Let the shells cool in the tins for 10 minutes before you move them. Hot, they are fragile and tear. If your tins have loose bases, push each one up from underneath. Rings just lift off. Out of a muffin pan, run a small palette knife around each shell and lift it straight up.
Leave them to cool completely before you fill them. Make the ganache in the meantime.
Prepare the Chocolate Ganache
Chop the dark chocolate and milk chocolate into small pieces and place them in a bowl. Heat the cream in a small saucepan until simmering (not boiling), and pour it into the chopped chocolate.
You want steam coming off the pan, not a rolling boil. Cream that is too hot is what makes a ganache grainy.
Leave the chocolate and cream without stirring for about one minute. Using a spatula, stir them from the middle outwards until the chocolate melts into the cream and comes together as a smooth ganache.
If it splits, a stick blender held right down in the bowl will usually bring it back.
Let the ganache cool for a few minutes, then pour it into the tartlet shells. Spread it level with the back of a spoon if it needs it.
Place the tartlets in the fridge to set. An hour firms the top, but a ganache this rich wants six hours or overnight to set all the way through.
Top them with strawberries just before you serve them.
Recipe Tips From the Chef
- Stop mixing as soon as the flour disappears. Overworked pastry bakes hard.
- Ease the pastry into the tins, do not pull it to fit. Stretching is the main reason shells shrink.
- Fill the lining to the brim with weights and keep them in for the full 15 minutes, or the sides slump.
- Cool the shells in the tins for 10 minutes before you lift them out. Hot shells tear.
- Changing the chocolate means changing the cream. This recipe is 1:1, equal weights of chocolate and cream, and the 70% dark in the blend keeps it firm. Swap the whole amount to milk chocolate and you need less cream, nearer half its weight. White chocolate needs about a third.
- Bring the cream only just to a simmer, never a boil. Overheated chocolate is what makes a ganache grainy or split. If it splits, a stick blender will bring it back.
- Give the filled tartlets six hours in the fridge, or overnight. An hour firms the top but the middle stays soft.
Storage and Make Ahead Instructions
The pastry dough keeps in the fridge for 2 days wrapped, or 2 months in the freezer. Baked empty shells keep at room temperature for a day or two in an airtight box, and they freeze well, so it is worth making a double batch when you have the mixer out.
Fill the shells the day before you need them so the ganache has overnight to set, and add the strawberries just before serving. Once they are filled, keep them in the fridge and eat them within 48 hours.
Any longer and the pastry softens and the strawberries go limp. I would not freeze them once they are filled and topped.
Recipe FAQs
Yes. Shop-bought sweet pastry cases will save you most of the work, and the ganache is the same either way. They will not be as crisp or as buttery as the homemade ones, but for a quick version they do the job.
Yes. The same quantities fill a 9 inch tart tin. It needs longer in the oven and longer to set, and you will definitely want baking weights for a tin that size because taller sides slump without them.
No. You can rub the butter into the flour and sugar with your fingertips, or pulse it in a food processor. Whichever you use, stop as soon as it comes together.
It is too cold. Straight from the fridge it will crack, so give it five minutes on the counter first. Rolling it between two sheets of baking paper stops it sticking without adding more flour, which would only dry it out.
Related Recipes
For more chocolate recipes why not try:
Did you make this recipe? Please let me know how it turned out! Leave a comment below and tag @cookingorgeous on Instagram and hashtag it #cookingorgeous.
I hope you enjoy the process of making these delicious mini Chocolate and Strawberry tarts as much as you enjoy eating them! 🙂
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Chocolate Strawberry Tartlets
Ingredients
Sweet Pastry Dough (Pâte Sucrée)
- 1 stick unsalted butter (at room temperature) (125 grams)
- ¼ cup caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- zest of ½ lemon
- 1 small egg
- 1 ⅔ cups plain white flour / all-purpose flour (200 grams)
- pinch of salt
Chocolate Ganache
- 1 cup heavy cream (double cream) (200 ml)
- 7 oz chocolate (half dark/half milk) (200 grams)
For Topping
- 10 strawberries
- 2 tablespoon flaked almonds (to garnish)
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt flakes (to garnish)
Instructions
Prepare the Sweet Pastry Dough (Pâte Sucrée)
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and sugar on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until pale and creamy.
- Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula, and mix for another 20 seconds.
- Add the egg, vanilla paste, salt and lemon zest. Beat on low speed until the yolk is evenly incorporated and the mixture is clumpy, for about 30 seconds.
- Add the sifted flour and mix on low speed for about a minute, until the flour is incorporated. The mixture will look like wet, clumpy sand.
- Using your hand, lightly knead the dough into a ball inside the bowl. Do not overwork the pastry.
- Turn the dough into a ball and roll it between two sheets of baking paper, about 3 mm (⅛ inch) thick. Place on a flat tray and leave to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.
- Take the dough out of the fridge, remove the baking paper and cut out 10 rounds of pastry using a small knife. A round or fluted cookie cutter works well here.
- Gently slide the pastries into the small tart tins, lightly pressing the edge between the bottom and the sides to remove any air bubbles. Mine are 8 cm (3 inch) tins. Ease the pastry in rather than pulling it to fit. Stretching it is what makes shells shrink in the oven.
- Prick the bottom of the pastries with a fork to stop them rising, then put them back in the fridge to rest for another hour.
Bake the Tartlet Shells
- Preheat your oven to 170°C (340°F) and place the tart tins in the freezer in the meantime.
- Line each tartlet shell with a paper cupcake case, baking paper, or heatproof cling film. Fill it right to the brim with baking beads, rice, beans, or chickpeas, which holds the sides up as the pastry sets. Ordinary cling film is not oven safe, so check the box.
- Bake the shells for 15 minutes with the weights in, then lift out the lining and weights together. Give them another 8 to 12 minutes uncovered, until they are deep golden and dry to the touch.
- Let the shells cool in the tins for 10 minutes before you move them. Hot, they are fragile and tear. If your tins have loose bases, push each one up from underneath. Rings just lift off. Out of a muffin pan, run a small palette knife around each shell and lift it straight up.
- Leave them to cool completely before you fill them. Make the ganache in the meantime.
Prepare the Chocolate Ganache
- Chop the dark chocolate and milk chocolate into small pieces and place them in a bowl.
- Heat the cream in a small saucepan until simmering (not boiling), and pour it into the chopped chocolate. You want steam coming off the pan, not a rolling boil. Cream that is too hot is what makes a ganache grainy.
- Leave the chocolate and cream without stirring for about one minute. Using a spatula, stir them from the middle outwards until the chocolate melts into the cream and comes together as a smooth ganache.
- If it splits, a stick blender held right down in the bowl will usually bring it back.
- Let the ganache cool for a few minutes, then pour it into the tartlet shells. Spread it level with the back of a spoon if it needs it.
- Place the tartlets in the fridge to set. An hour firms the top, but a ganache this rich wants six hours or overnight to set all the way through.
- Top them with strawberries just before you serve them.
Notes
- Stop mixing as soon as the flour disappears. Worked too long, the pastry turns elastic and bakes hard.
- Roll the pastry wider than you need and ease it into the tins. Pulling it to fit is the main reason shells shrink.
- Rest the lined tins in the fridge for an hour, then freeze them while the oven heats up.
- Bake 15 minutes with the weights in, then 8 to 12 minutes uncovered until deep golden and dry to the touch.
- Cool the shells in the tins for 10 minutes, then push loose bases up from underneath. Hot shells tear.
- Use cooking or couverture chocolate, not chocolate chips. Chips will not melt into a smooth ganache.
- Changing the chocolate means changing the cream. This recipe is 1:1, equal weights of chocolate and cream, and the 70% dark in the blend keeps it firm. Swap the whole amount to milk chocolate and you need less cream, nearer half its weight. White chocolate needs about a third.
- Chop the chocolate finely and bring the cream only just to a simmer, never a boil. If it splits, a stick blender held under the surface will usually bring it back.
- Pour the ganache in while it is still warm for a smooth top, then give it six hours in the fridge or overnight to set properly.
- Halve the strawberries and sit them cut side up, as close to serving as you can.
- Empty shells keep at room temperature wrapped in cling film. Once filled, they go in the fridge.
Shannon says
Thanks for such an accurate recipe n simple too! best tartlets ever!!! i know i ll have to make these more often now….
Chrissy says
I made this tartlets yesterday for my family, divine! We all loved then and I will be making them again!
Sana says
Made these for the first time, and this definitely won't be the last! They were decadent, rich, and so easy to make! Making the shells do take some time but I honestly don't mind!
Fi says
Love how elegant and fancy these look while actually being pretty easy to whip up! Great for a dinner party!
Renan says
These looks delicious! On my list to do this weekend.