TWD: Chocolate Truffle Tartlets and How to Make Your Own Tartlet Pans

Tuesday's with Dorie gave us something sweet this week.  The tartlets themselves weren't all that difficult to make, and they tasted pretty good, but not good enough for me to make them again.  I may have overbaked them because they tasted a little on the dry side, but even so, the desert didn't quite pack enough wow, and I was expecting a lot of WOW.  

The recipe called for multiple items that I did not have on hand.  First, white chocolate, second, biscotti, and third, tartlet pans.  I really didn't want to end up spending a fortune on this dessert, so I tried to find a substitute for tartlet pans.  I don't even have a tart pan so I didn't even have the option of making a large tart.  After some searching I found a suggestion on chowhound to make your own out of tinfoil.  It took a little experimenting but I was eventually able to find something to work.

 Obviously the square pans were the easiest to make look good.  The round one looked so terrible I didn't end up using it.  The heart was a cute idea but I unfortunately used the part where I connected the two ends of foil together for the center point of the heart and the tartlet came apart as I tried to remove the foil.  Here is how I made them.

First you need to find the circumfrence of the tartlet pans size you want.  Thanks to google (not my geometry class, I don't remember any of that), I learned that I needed about 14 inches to equal the recommended 4.5 inch tartlet pans.  Add three inches to that and you get the length of foil you need.  In my case 17 inches ( I do remember that math from 1st grade).

Take your foil and fold the 17 inch side up one inch.  Keep folding about seven times until the foil is all folded.  If you are like me your final strip will be about 1.5 inches in height rather than one.  That's good.  I used a ruler to press down my creases and make them stronger.

Fold one end about 1/2-2/3 of the way up.  This will be the bottom of your tartlet pan (Sorry, no picture).

Then you will need to connect the two ends together to make circle.

Now you shape it into whatever shape you want.  As I said, I liked the square the best.  Just fold in half then in half again.  Last of all fold down the bottom, and you have got yourself a tartlet pan.  To remove the tart from the pan when you are done cooking just cut and peel away the foil.

If you plan on making a lot of tartlets in the future I would save myself the trouble and go buy some.   But for a one time thing this worked well.

If you would like to try the tarts yourself you can go to A Whisk and a Spoon, spkie.does.stuff, or cookbookhabit.  Or you can go straight to the source with Baking with Julia.

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