Candied Ginger – Milk Chocolate – Roasted Pineapple Tartlets

We made these tartlets some time ago(believe it or not but it was in April) and they were extremely delicious but I never found time to write down the recipe. Since I've promised myself to finish all the things initiated through the year before its end there was no more time for procrastinating.

The original recipe is from Larousse du Chocolat by Pierre Hermé, but we changed it a little bit by making the crust gluten free, and using the syrup from the candied ginger for roasting the pineapple.

Candied Ginger – Milk Chocolate – Roasted Pineapple Tartlets Recipe:
Based on Pierre Hermé's Tart au chocolat au lait et à l'ananas rôti from Larousse du Chocolat

For the Crust:

Makes 6 8,5cm tartlets

• 110 gr cold butter, cut in 1cm pieces;
• 60 gr confectionners' sugar;
• 3 egg yolks;
• 60 gr tapioca flour;
• 75 gr millet flour;
• 45 gr rice flour;
• 45 gr corn starch;
• 20 gr almond meal;
• pinch of salt.

Place all flours, almond meal, sugar and salt in a food processor, equipped with the metal blade, and pulse a couple of times to combine all the dry ingredients. Add in butter and pulse several more times until large crumbs form. Add in egg yolks and pulse just to combine. Gather the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Take the dough out of the fridge. On a lightly floured counter top, roll the dough out to 3mm and line 6 tartlet rings with it. Place the rings on a lined with silpat (or paper) baking sheet. Poke the bottom of the tartlets a few times with a fork. Refrigerate for half a hour.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Take the shells out of the fridge and prepare them for blind baking – place a piece of aluminium foil in each shell, then fill with dry baking beans. Bake tartlet shells for 10 minutes (till the edges just start to turn golden), then remove the dry beans and bake for further 10 to 15 minutes or until goden brown. Transfer the shells to a wire rack and let them cool.

For the Candied Ginger:

• 150 gr fresh ginger, peeled;
• 300 gr water;
• 300 gr granulated sugar.

Cut ginger into thin slices. Place them in a heavy bottom sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for a minute. Discard the water (I like to drink it as a tea sweetened with some jaggery). Cover with fresh water and repeat the procedure for 2 more times. 3 times in total.

Combine water and sugar and bring to a boil. When sugar dissolves add in the drained ginger slices. Cook till the temperature reaches 106ºC. Remove from heat and let the ginger steep overnight in the sugar syrup before using it.

The next day the ginger slices are ready to be used. On the other hand the syrup will be used for roasting the pineapple into it.

Since the recipe makes more than needed you could keep the rest for future needs. Just strain the ginger slices and lay them on a wire rack – leave them for a day this way to let all the unnecessary syrup to drip off. Then roll them in granulated sugar, place them in a jar and keep them in the refrigerator for up to a year.

For the Roasted Pineapple:

• 1 pineapple;
• ginger sugar syrup (from the recipe above);
• 1 vanilla pod;
• 3 allspice berries;
• 2 Tbsp rum.

Preheat the oven to 230ºC.

Pour the ginger sugar syrup in a gratin dish, add in allspice berries and rum. Cut vanilla pod lengthwise, scrape the seeds and add both seeds and pod to the syrup.

Trim off the top and the bottom of the pineapple, then peel it. Insert a bamboo skewer lengthwise in the center of the pineapple leaving both ends of the skewer hanging out, so you could easier rotate the pineapple during baking.

Place the pineapple into the dish with the syrup and bake for an hour – an hour and a quarter. During baking, use both ends of the skewer as handles to rotate the pineapple 4-5 times so the syrup soaks from all the sides.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Take out the skewer and prepare yourself for the messy part. Cut lengthwise the pineapple in quarters and remove the hard core. (We actually sliced the pineapple crosswise, then removed the core using a cutting ring). Cut each quarter in three, then slice crosswise and return slices into the syrup. At this point the pineapple should be ready to be used but ours looked a little bit under baked from inside so we baked it at 200ºC for further 20 minutes submerged in the syrup.

Keep pineapple slices in the fridge, submerged in the syrup till needed.


For the Milk Chocolate Ganache:

• 180 gr milk chocolate (we used Cacao Barry's Ghana chocolate which contains 40,5% cocoa solids);
• 150 gr butter, room temperature;
• 110 ml whole milk;
• 45 gr candied ginger, chopped to small pieces – 2-3mm.

Bring the milk to a boil, then pour it over the chocolate. Leave it for a minute, then stir until homogenous. Add in the butter and stir to combine, then mix in the chopped candied ginger.

Assembling:

Divide the ganache among the tartlet shells and refrigerate. Take out of the fridge an hour before serving.

Arrange the pineapple slices just before serving.