With a crunchy base and a soft filling On the palate, chocolate tarts with meringue topping are an original, delicious and fun Halloween dessert.

Unlike other sweets created specifically to resemble body parts or hide a scary surprise, these mini tarts they present themselves in a more guise delicateexploiting the imagination of young chefs who, from a tuft of meringue, manage to tell stories of ghosts funny people capable of livening up the party buffet.

Perfect, therefore, to serve during a dinner more formal dinnerthe preparation is the classic one for tarts: shortcrust pastry base made of flour and butter worked with the fingertips, sugar, egg yolks and a pinch of salt to give the mixture a sparkling edge.

Guest star on this one dessert for halloween dinner it’s Italian meringue: egg whites, water and sugar for a super fluffy effect reminiscent of cartoon desserts.

To crown the mini chocolate tarts is the ganache made of cream, dark chocolate and butter. A sweet and never cloying cream that caresses the palate in a gentle way.

Ganache:

Bring the cream to the boil, add the chopped chocolate, wait a few seconds and mix slowly from the center outwards, add the butter and mix again in the same way until it melts.

Shortcrust pastry:

Mix butter at room temperature, sugar, pinch of salt and flavourings, add the egg yolks slowly and mix.

Mix the flour and knead as little as possible.

Leave to rest for two hours in the fridge, roll out the pastry to make the tarts (base + edges), prick and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Cook in a static and preheated oven for about 15 minutes.
Italian meringue:

In a saucepan, bring the granulated sugar and water to 121°C. In the meantime, whip the egg whites, let them foam and then add the sugar, continuing to whip.

Pour the prepared syrup in two batches.

Continue whipping until the container returns to room temperature and the meringue becomes nice and firm.

The eyes are made of sugar paste.
Instead of meringue you can use whipped cream.