We’re a week into 2015 and I have no plans to curb my diet of butter and sweets quite yet. I baked a lot of delicious goodies over the Christmas holidays, and I’ve still got a few tins to polish off at home.
Last year, I made about a half dozen different varieties of holiday baked goods, but this year, I decided to scale things back just a little. I stuck with a few recipes I was already familiar with, and added just two new desserts to the mix.
If you’re curious, I made a big batch of this Sweet, salty, crunchy, holiday pretzel and nut mix, and I made a double order of my well-loved Cranberry pistachio biscotti.
A new-to-me-recipe this year was making shortbread cookies. These were remarkably easy to make and I just followed Tessa Sam’s Earl Grey shortbread recipe, but omitted the tea leaves.
The other new recipe I made was a bit more challenging. After interviewing Vancouver baker extraordinaire Rosie Daykin for my cooking column at work a few months ago, I was inspired to try her chocolate chip walnut tarts for Christmas Eve dessert. I wasn’t quite prepared for how arduous these tuned out to be (possibly also because I doubled the recipe to make 30 tarts), even though I divided the pastry-making and tart-filling into two days. They were, however, so worth it and the most delicious little treats ever.
Here’s how I made them.
Ingredients
- For the pastry
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
2 large eggs
½ cup cold water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
- For the filling
2 large eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
I made the pastry about a week before and kept it frozen in the freezer until about a day before baking. The pastry was quite easy to make since I didn’t need any sort of fancy equipment (like a cake mixer).
In a large bowl, sift the flour and salt together. Then cut the cold cubes of butter into the flour. You can do this a number of ways, but I like to just use two forks or a fork and knife. Continue doing this until all of your butter is about the size of peas.
In another bowl, whisk together the egg, water, and lemon juice. Then pour this over the flour and butter. Mix everything together using a fork or your fingers until a dough forms.
Roll out two large-ish pieces of plastic wrap. Divide your dough in half, and pour half of it in the centre of one piece of plastic wrap, and the remaining dough in the centre of the other piece. Using your hands, form the dough into balls and then flatten into discs. Wrap the dough tightly with the plastic wrap, and place them into a freezer bag for freezing.
If you’re making the pastry on the same day as the tarts, simply refrigerate the dough for at least two hours.
A day before you want to bake the tarts, transfer the dough from the freezer to the refrigerator to defrost. About 30 minutes before baking time, take the dough out of the fridge to make it a little softer to roll out.
To make the tarts, you’ll need a regular 12-cup muffin tin and a circular cutter about 4-inches in diameter (I used a cup).
Preheat the oven to 350F.
On a floured work surface, roll out the dough until it’s about a ¼-inch thick. Cut 12 pastry rounds using your circular cutter. Before placing the dough onto the baking sheet, pinch four edges so that the pastry forms a clover shape when placed into the muffin tin. This was the trickiest step for me, and it took me a couple tries before I was able to get it. There’s a great video of Rosie Daykin demonstrating how to pinch the sides that you can watch here.
Whisk the egg, sugars, vanilla, flour, and salt together in a bowl before pouring the melted butter over top. Keep on mixing until you have a nice, velvety texture. Then, transfer the liquid to a measuring cup with a spout for easy pouring.
Combine the chocolate chips and walnuts and then divide them easily between the tart shells. Pour the butter mixture into each tart shell, filling them about ¾ of the way. Bake them for about 15 minutes, or until the tart filling is solid, puffed, and golden.
I had to do this in 3 separate batches since I only have one muffin tray, so the whole process took me about two hours. It was very much worth it, though, because the tarts tasted great.
My family members loved eating them on Christmas Eve, and I enjoyed leftovers for “breakfast” for a few days afterwards. I would definitely make them again—possibly before next Christmas!
