. . . a belated happy, happy new year, and wishing you all the very best for 2014!
How has your new year been so far? Here, it has been a non-stop whirl ever since christmas, and there were champagne toasts and merry merry dinners, much needed family time and pretty holiday cards, last minute cooking and new year's baking, and now it is monday again, and have been thinking very hard about where {chasing sofia crumbs} will be headed for the new year (and there is still much to consider), but first a recipe for a bright & beautiful start.
The idea for these chocolate truffle stars (or chocolate truffle reverse-tartlets) came up when I was designing my new year's card. Back when I made these lemon tartelettes, I also tried the chocolate truffle tartlettes by miette, and they were fantastic. The only problem was, because the chocolate ganache was so rich, a whole tartlet felt slightly too rich. But I didn't want to give up on these chocolate treats because they truly were delicious. Thoughts of making them in smaller bite size portions came up momentarily, but making canape-size tart shells wasn't very appealing, and besides, I thought these treats deserved a prettier look (than my probably wonky canape tart shell attempts).
Fast-forward to christmas time. I had a brand new star-shaped cookie cutter, and the phrase "bright & beautiful new year" was appearing on my new year's card design. It also helped seeing this beautiful photograph of salted caramels (taken by my idol Katie Quinn Davies, full post here), and the idea for chocolate truffle stars was born. These are reverse-tartlets with the pâte sucrée crust in the middle and the chocolate ganache on the outside rather than the other way around. I tried topping them with a pinch of fleur de sel, and they upgraded the intense chocolate flavor (at least in my opinion, but I was in a euphoric state so please feel free to omit this last step if you are skeptical) and set a lovely contrast. Make sure that you get the ganache as glossy and smooth as you can, and also keep them in the refrigerator until serving time because ganache becomes sticky and soft at room temperature.
Happy baking, and hope your 2014 is bright & beautiful!
* { chocolate truffle stars adapted from : miette by meg ray with leslie jonath — chocolate truffle tartlettes }
* read the post {LA GANACHE | A DETAILED HOW-TO} for a detailed version of the chocolate ganache recipe
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