Ingredients
Chocolate Crust
1-1/4 cup unbleached flour
1/4 cup dark, unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter
1 large egg
Preparation
Chocolate Crust
Add first four ingredients to a food processor and pulse until well blended.
Cut butter into 8 pieces. Add to dry ingredients and pulse until mixture looks like oatmeal.
Use fork to break up and mix egg, then pour it all at once into the food processor bowl. Pulse 5-6 times to begin to moisten mixture.
Let machine run steadily for a few seconds. Watch carefully until mixture begins to stick together and starts to form a ball. Machine will make a different sound as this happens.
Press dough into a cylinder (like a roll of refrigerated cookie dough), cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 30-45 minutes or up to a week.
When ready to make crusts, cut cylinder into 12 equal slices. I usually end of with 13 tarts because I roll all the scraps together to make the 13th shell.
Roll each slice between plastic wrap until just slightly larger around than tart shell. Dough should be just shy of 1/4 inch thick and a consistent thickness throughout. This can be a little tricky at first. Practice makes perfect.
Cover and freeze mini-tart shells until rock hard.
Place tart shells onto a cookie sheet. Cover the inside of each tart with foil pressed to fit down inside.
Bake in preheated 400 degrees F oven for 10 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 2-3 more minutes.
- Cool for 5 minutes. Remove crust from pan or mold. Fill when completely cool.
