Cherry Balsamic Chocolate Cheesecake Tarts

Happy Valentine’s Day! Breaking in my new tart rings with chocolate and cherries. # 387: Cherry Balsamic Chocolate Cheesecake Tarts

What is Valentine’s Day if not an excuse to eat extra chocolate? Preferably in the form of a baked good and paired with a delicious fruit or cream filling. Oh and telling your person you love them! I gotta work on my priorities, clearly.

These lil cuties sprang from a pack of shiny new tart rings I got for Christmas and an almost-gone bottle of balsamic vinegar that was taking up space in the pantry. Third trimester nesting is a trip – the pantry has never been tidier.

How adorable are the little ovals? After this first attempt, I now want to try rolling the pastry even thinner. The rings are so narrow, even 3mm thickness feels hefty.

The little polka dots from the perforated sides of the rings can be sanded off with a microplane, but I think they’re growing on me. Or I’m just so distracted by fillings that I don’t notice them as much anymore!

I’m so pleased with this dough it might usurp my go-to tart shell recipe! Shhh don’t tell her. This new one is from the Bouchon Bakery book so it was either going to be a slam dunk, or overly pretentious with too many ingredients. Spoiler: it was the former.

The extra dough went to line a few classic fluted mini rounds and it was fascinating to see the difference in the baking level. The perforated rings crisped to a golden brown on the bottom and edges, while the fully enclosed rounds left the bottoms barely cooked. Luckily no soggy bottoms but it was a close one.

Sneaky new ingredient: almond flour! It makes the shell taste more like a cookie than just a buttery utensil and I’m here for it.

The recipe called for the butter to be the consistency of mayo. Recipe after my own mayonnaise-loving heart.

Plop.

Using the fraiser or fraisage technique of bringing the dough together feels counterintuitive. It feels dangerously close to kneading the dough and everything I’ve learned over the course of baking too many things with shortcrust pastry is that you should avoid overworking it at all costs. The trick seems to be to smear it on the counter just enough to make it cohesive, in place of continuing to beat it in a mixer. So in a way, it’s gentler on the dough and uses the heat of your palm to meld the ingredients.

I recently watched a video where the baker had two long metal strips that he puts on either side of the dough to roll it evenly out to a specific height. Honestly a genius move, and rulers worked in a pinch!

All about that base.

Construction time: installing the walls by cutting a strip of dough and gently sealing the seam by squishing the ends together.

The tiniest bathtub.

Time for a haircut.

Crossing my fingers for the blind bake, hoping for no slumped walls!

Very unofficial cheesecake coming at ya. I didn’t have heavy cream for a ganache, but the leftover cream cheese in the fridge stepped up to the plate.

The bathtubs are way too skinny for scooping filling in, so bring on the piping bags!

Left plenty of room for jam.

Speaking of jam..

Keeping with the Valentine’s Day theme: the lemon juice ice cubes were shaped like hearts before they started melting.

The recipe called for extra pectin on top of whatever the cherries bring to the mix, and all I had was gelatin. It set way firmer than I had hoped, but c’est la vie!