Shortcrust vanilla hearts, stuffed with chocolate

Version française disponible ici !

Very special article today because last weekend, I had the pleasure to prepare small cakes for the wedding of couple who’s very fond of food: one in love with of vanilla, the other one with chocolate.

Huge honor for me to get this responsibility! 70 guests to please, just imagine the pressure on me :p

After having them taste different realizations I made, I have baked more than 400 mouthfuls. There were among others: truffles, meringues, vanillekipferl, Martha Stewart’s all chocolate cookies (mini version), coconut rocks.

The objective given to me was to make small cakes (heart shaped if possible!) with vanilla or chocolate. Then I wanted to associate these two flavors into those Shortcrust vanilla hearts stuffed with chocolate. Invention that immediately pleased them! Here we get a shortcrust pastry flavored with vanilla and a kind of creamy chocolate paste. A delicious mixture of tastes and textures which can remind you the one from the “Choco” (French biscuits) from your childhood (a bit better I must say :p).

Don’t lose more time, let’s go in the kitchen!

The quantities of ingredients I give you are for about 35 biscuits and have to be adjusted depending on how high your biscuits and the chocolate layer will be:

For biscuits

• 125g room temperature butter, cut in pieces
• 125g sugar
• 1 egg
• 250g flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1-2 tsp liquid vanilla

For the chocolate layer (in French)

• 150g dark chocolate
• 30g butter
• 50ml milk

We start by preparing the shortcrust pastry. So biscuits will have time to cool down. To do that, we follow precisely this recipe. Just think to add liquid vanilla to the creamy butter.

After the resting time, spread the pastry out and form hearts with a pastry cutter. Put the hearts on some parchment paper on a baking tray (the dough must be cold enough to not stick). Then, using a smaller pastry cutter, remove a small heart in the middle of every 2 hearts.

Faire cuire environ 10 minutes à 180°C (bien surveiller, ça peut cuire très vite selon l’épaisseur de la pâte !).

After biscuits have cooled down on a wire rack, we prepare the chocolate paste:

Melt chocolate and butter on a low heat. When you get a smooth mixture, remove from the heat, add milk and mix again. Keep aside in the fridge to thicken the paste.

Be careful, once again it can go fast (depending on how your container keeps the cold). So mix the paste every 5 minutes to check the hardness of it. When the texture is like a spread, it’s ready!

Assembly

Remove the chocolate paste from the fridge, set biscuits close to you, check that you have 140 of it (yeaaah, I’m kidding, you don’t have to :D), take a comfortable chair (pfff, and I remained standing!) and now let’s stuff!

Take a heart-biscuit “full”, spread some chocolate paste on its flat side (the one that was on the baking tray), put a biscuit with a small heart hole on the chocolate paste in order to form like a “sandwich” – the slight rounded side on top. Press a bit to stick everything together (be careful not to break biscuit on the top! Otherwise you will have to eat the broken hearts;)

Use a small knife to delicately remove the chocolate paste that leaked (do not soil the biscuits!).

And here we are, one is done ^^. Continue until there is nothing left and keep in the fridge :)

TIPS AND TRICKS

It’s very important to have a correct texture for the chocolate paste, I mean spreadable. Then you will be able to heat the top heart without breaking it when it comes to close the “sandwich”. If the texture is too hard, a few minutes at room temperature or close to some heat should be fine :)

Quite easy to make but this is meticulous work as you may have noticed. So it takes some time (about 6-7 hours for 70 hearts from start to finish ^^).

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Well, we had to eat the few broken ones … so sad.

Very good with a (good) coffee! The same with a big cold milk glass (and you can dip it! :)

Here is the nice story I wanted to share with you. A big thank to J & A for their trust, their kindness and their enthusiasm. Note that we just have communicated in Swedish, nice, isn’t it? ^^

See you very soon and enjoy the day ;)

Rose.