Little hazelnut tartlets with caramel fudge icing

By Patricia_Scarpin

Ingredients

• Caramel fudge icing:
• 100 g cold butter, coarsely chopped
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped seeds only
• 3 egg whites
• 180 g pure icing sugar, sieved
• 70 g hazelnut meal
• 50 g plain flour
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• crème fraîche, to serve
• 330 g light brown sugar
• 100 ml pouring cream
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 20 g butter, room temperature

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from gourmettraveller.com.au

Preparation

Step 1

Butter and flour 4 12cm-diameter fluted tart pans*; set aside.

Cook butter and vanilla seeds in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until dark nut brown in color (4-5 minutes), then set aside until completely cool.

Preheat oven to 170ºC/338ºF. Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form, gradually add icing sugar, whisking continuously until thick and glossy. Fold in hazelnut meal, flour and orange rind, then cooled butter. Divide among the prepared pans and bake until golden (20-25 minutes). Stand for 5 minutes, then remove from moulds and cool on a wire rack.

For caramel fudge icing, combine ingredients in a saucepan and stir over medium-high heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves (2-3 minutes). Bring to the boil and cook until mixture reaches 114ºC/237ºF on a candy thermometer (4-5 minutes).Transfer to an electric mixer, add 80ml of hot water and whisk until glossy. Working quickly, spoon onto tarts and stand until set. Serve with crème fraîche – I served it with whipped cream.

* I used 8.5cm pans and ended up with 8 tarts