Fruit and Chocolate Nests

Ingredients

Yield:

10

• Nests

  • Store-bought puff pastry dough (frozen) 2 sheets
  • Heavy Cream 8oz
  • Powdered sugar, sifted 5 TB
  • Cocoa Powder, sifted 1 TB
  • Fresh Fruit (Peachs, berries, plums, grapes, anything you like!) cut bite size
  • Dark Chocolate 1 bakers block (8oz)
  • Gold nonpareils or any color sprinkle or garnish (get creative!)

• Cocoa Streusel:

  • Melted butter 8oz
  • Brown sugar 4oz
  • Granulated sugar 4oz
  • Bread flour 1lb 5oz
  • Cocoa powder 5oz
  • Powdered sugar (to dust the streusel)

Preparation

Difficulty:

Medium

Time:

1 Hour+20 min cook time

Total Time:

1 Hour

1. Tart Shells

   1. Begin by preparing your tart shells. Using two concentric ring cutters, cut 20 large circles and reserve 10. With the remaining 10 large circles, make donut shapes by cutting out the center with the smaller cutter. A 4” and 2” cutter work perfectly for this. Line the full circles on a parchment-lined sheet pan and brush with eggwash (1 whole egg thinned out with water) and set the donut shaped rings on top. The eggwash will glue the pieces together to create a nest when they puff up. Avoid dripp

2. Fruit

   1. Cut your fruit to bite size and set aside. Whip heavy cream until soft peaks form, slowly add in sifted cocoa and powdered sugar and mix till combined, set aside in refrigerator.

3. Cocoa Streusel

   1. Make cocoa streusel by mixing together the sugars, bread flour, and cocoa then gently mix in the melted butter crumbling the streusel lightly to make little pebbles. Its easiest to use your hands for this step to avoid over mixing, leave some chunks bigger than others so you can use them to fill in your tart later. Once you have a crumbly mixture, spread it on a sheet pan and bake at 325 for 15-20 minutes stirring occasionally. Cool and dust with powdered sugar, set aside.

4. Nests

   1. To make the chocolate nests, use your large ring cutter to trace guide circles on parchment. Flip the paper over and use the guide to drizzle melted dark chocolate into a nest design. While the chocolate is still wet, decorate the nests with nonpareils, sprinkles, or anything springy!

5. Assembly

   1. Now that your components are all ready, fill each tart shell 1/3 full with chocolate cream, set the nest around the edge, and fill with fruit and dusted streusel chunks.