Christmas tarts

Place Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets) into a bowl or alternatively chop white chocolate into small pieces and place them into a bowl. Pour pistachio paste on top

Soak gelatin into cold water

Heat 250g cream until simmering, mix gelatin sheet in and pour it over the chocolate & pistachio paste mixture

Let the chocolate cream mixture set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir together or hand blend. Once mixture slightly cools to room temp, stir in rest of the cream, cover the top of the ganache with plastic wrap and refrigerate for minimum 4 hours

The mixture should thicken after 4 hours and can be whipped into a pipeable, fluffy consistency in a Stand mixer. Once it is reached a fluffy consistency (1-2min), make sure you do not over whip the ganache as it can break. Whipped ganache should be stored in the fridge before using it or best if you use it immediately

The dough will be enough to make 6 tarts and 6 larger and 6 smaller sable cookies

Sift together dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, icing sugar, almond, salt

Add very cold butter cubes and rub the mixture between your hands until it becomes a sand like consistency. This will take around a minute or two

Add egg into the mixture and mix with your hands just until the dough comes together, few seconds

Knead with the palm of your hand for a minute or two (do not over knead and do not use mixer) just until the dough becomes smooth. Form a disk and cover the dough in plastic wrap. Let it rest in the fridge for min 2 hours. You can leave it resting in the fridge over night or you can even freeze the dough

After the dough rested roll it out into 2mm thickness between two Silicine baking mats. Do not use extra flour for rolling

Place the dough into the freezer for 15 min in between two Silicone baking mats. Do not remove the mat at this point

Prepare your oven rack with the Perforated "air" baking mat and Perforated tart rings on top

Take the dough out from the freezer and using one of the Perforated tart rings, cut out 6 circles - this will be the bottom of your tart crust. Carefully move the dough circles with the help of an offset spatula and place them into the rings one by one

If at any point the dough gets too warm to work with, pop it back into the freezer for 5 minutes. You might need take the dough in and out of the freezer 10-15 times. It is extremely important to work with a dough that is cold enough to be able to handle (so not sticky) but not too cold which would result in breaking it

Cut 6 long stripes out of the dough, this will be the side of the tart

Carefully place the stripes into the ring one by one. Press each stripe onto the ring so it sticks to it

Place the perforated tart rings with the tart dough in them into the freezer for 2 hours

While tart dough is in freezer, prepare the sablee cookies. Using the remaining dough repeat the process. Roll it into 2mm thickness between two Silicone baking mats, use the freezer if dough gets too soft to work with

Cut out 12 circles with the help of 2 cookie cutters; 6x small ones and 6x larger ones eg. 3 cm and 5 cm in diameter. Make sure the larger one is not bigger than the actual diameter of the tart

Freeze the sable cookie circles too before baking. It is enough to freezer them for about 1h

Pre-heat oven to 160C / 320F (no fan)

Bake the sable cookies in between two Perforated "air" baking mats for about 15 minutes

After tart dough is well frozen (2h), take them out of the freezer and trim the top to the level of the tart rings with a sharp knife

Bake for 18 min then carefully remove the rings and bake for another 5 min. Let them cool on the Perforated "air" baking mats

For the cookies, re-roll the leftover dough and cut out 6 smaller and 6 larger size cookies then bake them at 160C / 320F (no fan) for 10 minutes

Chop chocolate into small pieces and place them into a bowl

Heat cream in a saucepan over medium heat just until simmering

Pour warm cream over chocolate, let it set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir or hand blend together

Prepare all the elements ahead of assembling: Tart shells, Sablee cookies, Pistachip whipped ganache, Chocolate ganache, Small amount of melted chocolate, Chopped pistachio, Pistachio paste (optional)

Once tart shells are cooled to room temp, brush their side (outside) with melted chocolate and apply finely chopped pistachio on the side. The pistachio will stick to the tart due to the melted chocolate

Place few pieces (10) of pistachio into each tart shell and pipe a small amount of pistachio paste on top

Pour chocolate ganache over the pistachio and pistachio paste and fill the tart shells to the top

Pop the tarts into the fridge for the ganache to set, this can take min. an hour. Make sure ganache is fully set before attempting to continue with the next step

Take the pistachio ganache out of the fridge and whip it up until it reaches a pipeable consistency. This will take for a minute or two, make sure you do not over whip it as it can break. Move whipped ganache into a piping bag fitted with French star nozzle tip.

Arrange the sable cookies and prepare the Christmas tree shape decoration that will go on top of the tarts: each tart will need one larger and one smaller sable cookie. Pipe pistachio whipped ganache on top of the larger sable cookie then carefully place the smaller sable cookie on top and pipe another layer of pistachio whipped ganache on top

Once chocolate ganache is fully set in the tart, pipe pistachio whipped ganache on top

Lastly, carefully place the Christmas tree shape decoration on top (that you made earlier). The tart will need a few more hours in the fridge before it fully sets