Tuesdays With Dorie : Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

Here comes the second recipe I baked for Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) : Chocolate Truffle Tartlets from Baking With Julia..

I baked these tartlets for the Valentine's Day dinner that I prepared for my husband.. And it was a big success within our small (2 people) family.. I don't know what we were expecting but we could not stop raving about how good it tastes after every bite.. As soon as we finished eating, I even called my friend who is also baking with TWD at the blog myyellowcookbook to tell her that this recipe is amazing.. It is very rich in chocolate (as one may guess - 4 different type of chocolate goes in it from cacao powder to white chocolate) but not too sweet with a very melting in your mouth texture but also has crunchy bits inside from biscotti and also a cookie like crust.. Well, best of everything :)

Instagram by Ferda: Preparing the crust 

From the start I was a bit intimidated by the recipe, mainly because I had not made pie crust before and this calls for 6 small ones.. I started the recipe with preparing the crust.. Making it in the food processor seemed much easier so I opted for that.. Mixing the ingredients was very easy with the food processor, but unfortunately my crust stayed very crumbly even after chilling it in the fridge for half an hour.. I guess I should have included couple more teaspoons of iced water as mentioned by some of the bakers in TWD blog.. Learning number 1 for the next time : May need to include a bit more iced water if the crust is too crumbly.. Because it was impossible to roll my very crumbly crust, I pressed it down my tartlet pans as you would do with graham cracker crust.. It turned out fine, crust was more cookie like than tender because of this change..

Instagram by Ferda: Fresh out of the oven

The filling is a very decadent combination of 70% chocolate, butter, a lot of (8 to be exact) egg yolks, a bit sugar and vanilla extract.. Then as if this was not enough, white chocolate, milk chocolate and biscotti pieces were folded into the batter.. The amount of my filling was more than sufficient to fill six 4 inch tartlet pans, and I overfilled the tartlets as I hate throwing away food.. The result was mushroom like tops for the tartlets.. Learning number 2 : Do not fill the tartlets over the crust level..

Although it was not easy to wait, I did not taste my tartlets until the end of our dinner.. Conclusion: these chocolate truffle tartlets are heavenly.. Not too sweet, but rich, smooth and crunchy, with white chocolate and milk chocolate explosions in your mouth (mine were still a bit melted inside), and almond flavor coming thru with the biscotti pieces in it.. It satisfied every expectation that we had from the dessert course, and one was enough for both of us.. And also it went perfectly with the last sips of Australian Shiraz that we were having for dinner..

I saved one tartlet in the fridge for the next day and froze the rest.. My observation is that even though they still taste rich and delicious after refrigerating and freezing, they lose their melting in your mouth texture..

I will definately bake this recipe again when I have some guests over.. For now I am using the stock in my freezer when needed/craved :)

For the recipe, please visit the blogs of this week's hosts: A Whisk and A Spoon, spike.does.stuff, Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats and cookbookhabit. Or Page 382 of the 'Baking With Julia'.

Looking forward to posting the next recipe in two weeks..

Tuesdays With Dorie : White Loaves

There is a blog called Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD), where a group of bakers from all over the world had been baking through Dorie Greenspan's "Baking From My Home To Yours" book from 2008 to end-2011. As of today, they started baking through another book of Dorie Greenspan's; "Baking with Julia" (BWJ), and I decided to join them in this round. I will be baking something new from BWJ every other other week, and posting here on Tuesdays..


The first recipe is White Loaves.. This was the first time I baked bread at home.. It is fairly simple to make but you need patience to wait two 45 minutes for rising of the dough, and another 45 minutes to bake it.. And since I do not have a stand mixer it was very tiring for my right arm to use hand mixer with dough hook for +15 minutes.. But then, when it started baking in the oven and released that fresh bread smell all over my house, it all worth it..


The recipe makes 2 loaves, but I halved the recipe to make only one, since it would be too much delicious white bread at home.. The result was great, I had a honey-brown colored 4,5 inches high white bread, crunchy on the outside and substantial texture inside.. It is a kind of bread you would be happy to get at a high-quality restaurant or a bakery, and it is even more enjoyable knowing that you baked it yourself.. BWJ says slices would be great for toasting, I will freeze the remaining slices to make grilled cheese sandwiches in the weekend, can not wait..


Only the hosts for the week are allowed to post the recipe, so I can not give the recipes in my blog but will give a link to their sites. Here are this week's hosts: Slush and Someone's in the Kitchen.. The recipe is given in the latter one..

Have a great day!