White chocolate and orange tartlets

Ingredients

For the sweet pastry 

• 200g plain flour
• 80g icing sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100g unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the white chocolate and orange crémeux

• 1 gelatine leaf
• 120ml double cream
• 120ml whole milk
• 1/2 vanilla pod, seeds only
• 1 orange, zest only
• 3 egg yolks
• 15g caster sugar
• 135g white chocolate

For the honeycomb

• 150g caster sugar
• 100g golden syrup
• 50ml water
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Directions

1. For the sweet pastry, in a large bowl mix the flour, sugar and salt together. Rub in the butter using your fingertips until a sandy texture is achieved. Mix the egg with the vanilla before stirring into the flour mix until you form a dough ball. Knead on a worktop a few times gently, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
2. Preheat your oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Roll out the pastry onto a floured worktop to 3-5mm thick. Cut out circles slightly larger than your tart tin size and line the six 10cm tins.
3. Chill for 10 minutes before lining with baking paper and filling each with baking beans. Bake blind for 15 minutes, remove the beans and paper and continue to bake for a further five to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the tins once cool.
4. For the crémeux, bloom the gelatine in a bowl of cold water for 10 minutes, squeezing out excess water right before using. Place the cream, milk, vanilla seeds and orange zest into a pan over a medium heat. Leave to come to a simmer for a few minutes.
5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Slowly pour in the hot cream to the egg mixture, whisking all the time. Pour back into the pan and cook over a low heat, constantly stirring, until the mixture thickens. Pour the mixture into a bowl, then stir in the chocolate. Leave to cool for five minutes
   before stirring in the gelatine. Whilst still warm, fill each case with the mixture and leave to set in the fridge.
6. For the honeycomb, grease an A3 size piece of baking paper with butter or a neutral flavour oil. Place all ingredients except the bicarbonate of soda into a pan over a high heat until it reaches 150°C on a candy thermometer (if you don’t have one, wait until it becomes a dark amber colour). Tip in the bicarbonate of soda and stir very quickly; the mixture will bubble up a lot so be careful. Quickly and gently pour over the prepared paper and leave to set until hard.
7. To assemble, break up the honeycomb into shards and fine powder. Press a few
   shards into each tartlet and sprinkle over the rest to decorate.
8. 
   Recipe by Stephen Chisholm

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Tips

Buy sweet shortcrust pastry to save time.

You can use dark chocolate instead but you’d need to use 50g sugar instead to the crémeux.