Chocolate Hazelnut Tarts
Sometimes two foods find each other and you know it’s true love. Just think about chocolate and peanut butter. Meant to be! Chocolate and hazelnut? Perhaps even more of a match made in heaven! Today I’m about to share a recipe which should be approached with great caution. No, not because it’s difficult or dangerous. In fact, the danger lies in how easy this recipe is to execute.
Now does anyone actually need a batch of rich chocolate hazelnut tarts lying around tempting them at every glance? I certainly don’t! But I’m so glad I gave in. Truly, truly glad. I’m still thinking about these tarts and how perfectly they hit the sweet spot. But you’d better believe I won’t be making these again unless I’m having guests over to participate in the indulgence!
The secret to these tarts isn’t in the simple tart crust. That’s pretty fool-proof. The secret lies in the use of International Delight hazelnut flavored creamer to make the rich chocolate ganache filling. It will change your life. Trust me on this. And as I warned above, approach with extreme caution. The deliciousness abounds.
For the crust, you just melt butter and mix in the sugar, salt, and flour. Very easy! No cutting in butter or any of that nonsense that you have to deal with when making pie crust. This is a great hands-on baking experience for kiddos.
Press the warm dough into each muffin pan cavity (I used a mini muffin pan), and cut away the scrap at the top. Note: I thought I had made my crusts on the thin side, but I definitely didn’t! They puffed up more than I had anticipated, So keep them on the thinner side. If you use a nonstick pan, they will pop out very easily, even if they are thin. (I tried both thicker and thinner, and liked the thinner ones better aesthetically, though I do like to eat lots of crust, so either way is a win in my book!)
Cover with plastic wrap and chill the pressed dough before baking. Don’t forget to pierce it so the dough doesn’t puff up too much! If you’re making a big tart, or even a standard tart or a standard muffin-size pan, you may want to use pie weights to keep the crust from popping up in the middle during baking.
The bake time will depend on how thick you pressed out the crust, as well as how large of a muffin pan you use. Set your timer for ten minutes, and add time depending on how golden they look, and also your preference. Allow the tart crusts to cool completely before flipping the pan upside down and gently tapping to release the shells from the pan.
The chocolate hazelnut ganache filling is equally as easy! Your ratio of creamer to chocolate should be 1 to 2. So, for my recipe I only needed 1/2 Cup hazelnut creamer with 1 Cup of dark chocolate. Start by warming the creamer in a sauce pan, and slowly stir in a little chocolate at a time, whisking to incorporate the chocolate into the creamer along the way. Don’t overheat! Once all of the chocolate is melted into the creamer, you’re ready to fill the tarts.
If you’re not worried about how your food photos look for your blog, this would be a prime time to let the little hands help again! Scoop the warm ganache into the cooled tart shells and top immediately with chopped and toasted hazelnuts. Or perhaps you prefer to top with a single hazelnut in the center. Let your conscience be your guide.
I think these mini tarts are perfect for parties, because you can make them well in advance and impress your guests with your artistry and, of course, your good taste. Or their good taste? (The tarts, that is!) I’m all about trying to impress my guests and trick them into thinking I’m the hostess with the mostest.
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 1/4 Cup of flour
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon of finely ground salt
- 1/2 Cup International Delight hazelnut creamer
- 1 Cup bittersweet chocolate chips (get the good stuff!)
- chopped and toasted hazelnuts
- Melt the butter and mix in the flour, salt, and sugar with a fork. Press the warm dough into mini muffin pan cavities. Make sure to keep the crust on the thin side. Trim off excess dough. Chill the pan for about 15 minutes. Pierce the dough with a fork all over. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until the crust is golden.
- Allow tart shells to completely cool on a cooling rack before gently turning over and tapping on the pan to release the shells from the pan.
- Warm the creamer in a sauce pan on low heat. Slowly stir in chocolate chips just a little bit at a time with a whisk. Do not overheat.
- When all of the chocolate is incorporated, fill the tart shells with the desired amount of ganache filling. Top immediately with chopped, toasted hazelnuts if desired. Allow the ganache to cool completely before serving.
- Do not stack tarts in storage. If you wish to stack tarts, decrease the amount of creamer used in the ganache recipe for a more solid set-up after cooling.
Thanks, International Delight for partnering with me on this recipe! Any excuse to use bring hazelnut creamer into my home is more than welcome! But this recipe is takes the hazelnut experience to a whole new level. It’s certainly one for the books. Check out more recipes using Internation Delight creamers at their Facebook page and Pinterest too.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine.
I started out by determining what an ideal day would look like, dietarily speaking, and planning various healthy (and low calorie) meal ideas that I can shuffle around like puzzle pieces to complete an ideal day of meals. The My Fitness Pal app is very helpful with this. You can log your meals and drinks to not only see calories, but also a macro nutrient pie chart and nutritional information for each meal and each day. It makes it easy to see how much protein, carbs, and fat you’re consuming, but also checking to see if your sugar, sodium, potassium, iron (and more) is where it should be. If by looking at your daily summaries you see that the day is a bit off from what you’d like, you can pin point what meals should be adjusted, and which meals really help you hit your targets. Then plan to adjust accordingly the next day. Once I found a variety of foods that are really goal friendly and also enjoyable to eat, I pretty much stick to the same rotation (with alterations here and there) and no longer need to log my meals to know that what I’m eating is on par with the nutrients I’m aiming for.
One of my favorite sayings is “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That is so true with fitness goals! Plan out what meals you’d like to eat each week before you hit up the grocery store, and exercise willpower at the store, which will make willpower at home much easier. Know your weaknesses and plan to overcome them! If you know you have trouble with things like ordering takeout because of convenience, then make sure you have your fridge stocked with healthy options that you enjoy. I like to grill chicken at the beginning of the week and reheat it later with other sides I have stocked in the fridge for easy dinners. Buying greek yogurt in serving sized packages is a favorite high protein snack of mine, but I also use containers to portion out food to take on the go if I need to fly out the door and know I’ll be tempted to hit the drive through later. If you struggle with late night snacking, substitute unhealthy snacks for healthier options you enjoy— that way you’re not depriving yourself from an experience you enjoy, but rather you’re just adjusting the habit a bit. Don’t just say “No eating after 7PM,” or something extreme like that, because cravings are about more than just food. They’re about experiences and comfort. So if you enjoy late night snacking, just incoporate it into your meal plan for the day and eat as late as you want! I used to enjoy a glass of wine almost every night. Again— I was looking for the experience of relaxing and treating myself after the kids were in bed, but now I’ll usually make myself a cup of tea with honey and sip on that. I will still have a couple of glasses of wine a week, or more depending on my social calendar, because remember— you want your nutritional goals to be easy to maintain and not restrictive.
At first it’s easy to be motivated to make good decisions regarding fitness goals. At least, if you’re excited about your goals. But that goes away after a while. So it’s important to make this about enjoying the process, not about the end goal. Or you may feel like giving up. I reward myself for reaching benchmark goals and also keep a motivational chart that I fill with stickers for various achievements, such as clean eating (purple smiley), weight lifting (orange smiley), miles run (gold star), and increasing my weight or going on a family walk. The first image in this post shows me adding a sticker to the chart, which is pretty gratifying, oddly enough! Find what motivates you, whether it be blogging, following fitness bloggers, finding a gym body, or whatever, and stick with it!
Because I am weight lifting, a big part of my personal dietary goals is to have a high protein diet. I used to aim for a macro nutrient ratio of 40/40/20 (protein, carbs, fat), but now I just try to hit 120-150 grams of protein each day and not really worry about my fat or carbs ratio so much. As far as calories go, on an ideal day I’ll consume around 1500, but I go over that most days because quite honestly, I struggle with eating according to my goals, but I also don’t want to stress myself out about it, so I just roll with it and figure, hey, this is a marathon, not a sprint! I’m not in a race to lose weight as fast as possible. I’m on a journey and it’s okay if I’m not perfect.
My favorite meal of the day! Perhaps because it’s always so carb laden? I often will eat these foods for snacks and other meals as well. When I’m on the go, I will make a smoothie because they are so easy to sip while driving. If it’s the weekend, I will load up on french toast. And if I need groceries, enter the peanut butter toast! Always I have coffee and never do I skimp on the cream.
It should be noted that because my schedule is different from most peoples’, considering my odd work-at-home mom schedule, that I fit in a workout somewhere between breakfast and lunch on most days. So my lunch is usually lighter and very protein heavy to fuel my muscle repair after heavy weight lifting. I usually fit in a substantial snack before dinnertime, or I’ll have an early dinner and then a substantial snack before bedtime.
I try to be flexible with dinners, because I usually have this meal alongside others, and especially in the Summer we grill out with friends. But it’s usually pretty easy to keep it light and protein-rich, as I’m likely to have a small grilled chicken breast with loads of veggies on the side. (Albeit some of those veggies are fried in the form of potato chips! Oops!) These are my favorite go-to dinners when I’m planning my own meals to enjoy with our family here at home:
Because my meals are on the small side and might be pretty nutritionally comparable to the snacks I eat, I actually tend to look at my daily intake more as “meal one,” “meal two,” etc. rather than breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. So here are some of my favorite snacks that I incorporate into the rotation, but I also regularly eat food from what I’ve listed under breakfast, lunch, and dinner for my snack time as well.
Some people go for cheesecake or pasta dishes like fettuccine alfredo, but I’m actually not the biggest fan of some basic cheat meals. (Though some of my favorites are as about basic as you can get!) I thought it would be fun to share my favorite indulgences that I’ll often choose when I’m ready to treat myself. Not all of these are necessarily bad for you, but they are more indulgent in the calorie department than I usually work into my daily diet, so I obviously don’t always eat this stuff. But I do look forward to indulging in them somewhat regularly! 
