Baking

Will Torrent’s Honey Caramel Tarts

Are you planning a special afternoon tea event? These beehive tarts are real showstoppers! Will says: While at university, I had the amazing opportunity to work at The Dorchester as part of my training and I loved it! Patronised by the rich and famous ever since it opened in 1931, the hotel’s Head Pastry Chef David Girard has presented afternoon tea to royalty – including Her Majesty The Queen. This recipe comes from their afternoon tea menu."

30 minutes, plus chilling prep, 15 minutes cook

Serves 16

Ingredients

200g plain flour

130g butter, plus 1 tbsp

90g icing sugar

60g ground almonds

20g cocoa powder

A pinch of salt

4 egg yolks

For the honey caramel:

4g leaf gelatin

160g honey

300ml double cream

A pinch of salt

90g butter

For the decoration:

lemon curd

100g dark chocolate

cocoa butter honeycomb transfer sheet (available from chocolatetradingco.com)

sugar bees (available from hollycupcakes.com)

Method

Put the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl and work together with fingertips to the consistency of breadcrumbs. In a separate bowl, mix together the icing sugar, ground almonds, cocoa powder and salt. Slowly add this to the butter and flour mixture. Stir gently until combined, then add the egg yolks. Stir again to form a dough. Wrap in cling film wrap and chill in the fridge for about 1 hour.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to a thickness of 2.5 mm. Stamp out rounds using the larger cookie cutter and line the muffin pan with the dough. Bring any scraps of dough together, re-roll and stamp out as many rounds as you can. Chill in the fridge again for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 160°C/ Gas 3. Line each round with foil or baking parchment and fill with baking beans or rice. Bake the rounds for 10 minutes, then remove the beans or rice and foil or parchment, and bake for a further 5 minutes. Cool in the pan.

To make the honey caramel, first soak the gelatin in cold water for 10 minutes. Put the honey in a pan set over a medium heat, leave it to melt, then turn up the heat and bring to the boil – be careful not to boil too much as you only want to caramelise it slightly.

In a second pan warm the cream, then carefully pour over the honey – it will bubble up a lot. Add the salt, bring back to the boil and remove from the heat. Add the butter and stir until melted. Drain the gelatin and squeeze off any excess water before adding to the caramel. Stir in, then pour into a jug and set in the fridge to cool.

To build the tarts, pour the honey caramel two-thirds of the way up the cooled pastry cases. Set aside to cool completely.

Temper the chocolate by melting in the microwave in bursts of 30 seconds. Once the mixture is three-quarters melted, stop heating and stir well to remove any lumps. Spread the tempered chocolate thinly on the cocoa butter transfer sheet with the printed cocoa butter pattern facing up. Leave to cool slightly and just as it starts to set, use the smaller cookie cutter to stamp out rounds of the chocolate. Leave to cool completely before removing and fitting snuggly on top of the tarts.

Pipe a small dot of lemon curd and a beehive shape on each tart and carefully fix a sugar bee to the dots.