I have a house full of chocolate spread, now how wonderful is that? Luckily, I have lots of ideas on how to use it, including baking a batch of chocolate walnut pastries. It’s been more years than I care to count since I last had chocolate spread, so how come I have a house full of it now?
Atkins and Potts have recently redesigned their packaging and introduced some new products to their range, so they sent me some to try. I shall be doing a full review and giveaway in due course, but these chocolate walnut pastries using the luxury milk chocolate spread are a start. I wasn’t really sure what to call these little delights. Are they tarts? Are they mini pies? Are they biscuits? Not being at all sure, I’ve opted for pastries. What would you call them?
This is how I made them:
Chocolate Walnut Pastries Recipe
- Pulsed 50g walnuts in my food processor until roughly chopped.
- Added 75g wholemeal spelt flour, 75g plain flour and 1/2 tsp baking powder.
- Added 75g golden caster sugar
- Added 50g butter and pulsed until mixture resembled breadcrumbs.
- Broke in 1 duck egg and 1 tbsp water and pulsed some more.
- Transferred mixture into a bowl, then brought it together with my hands to form a ball.
- Left in my cool kitchen overnight (1/2 hr in fridge should be fine).
- Rolled the pastry out to abut 1/4 cm thickness.
- Cut 4 10 cm diameter circles out using the top of my tart tins and put to one side.
- Re-rolled the pastry and cut 4 more circles to line the tart cases, using the off cuts to fill in any gaps.
- Spread 2 heaped teaspoonfuls of milk chocolate spread over each base.
- Topped with the pastry circles and pressed the sides in to seal.
- Brushed each one with milk & placed a walnut half on top of each one.
- Baked at 180C for 20 minutes until golden.
- Left to cool then dusted with icing sugar.
We ate these chocolate walnut pastries cold, but I’m very sure they would have been delicious eaten warm with clotted cream or ice-cream or just on their own. In fact they would be perfect for a cosy Valentine’s supper. I was delighted by the pastry which was beautifully crumbly, rich and walnutty. The chocolate spread oozed out of the middle in a rather seductive way and I just couldn’t resist. No wonder they didn’t last long.
So, as one of these chocolate walnut pastries would be perfect for sharing, I am entering them into Tea for Two, a Virtual Valentine Bake Off event over at Homemade by Fleur.
Wow, I will never think of chocolate spread as just being something my youngest will only eat on sandwiches… yuk. I like you have a home full of it and never ever thought of using it in cooking. Thanks for this, its a great idea.
very unusual worth a try 🙂
These look absolutely beautiful, like something out of a French patisserie! I bet they taste as good too!
I love these already without tasting them and I have chocolate spread in my kitchen unexpectedly that is crying out for this recipe!
Go Johanna go 😉
I’d love a bite of this tart! Sooo yummy!
Only one bite Alida? Surely you could manage two 😉
Now these little round goodies of deliciousness seem to have my name written all over them. How good does that sound! Thanks Choc!
Haha, you’re very welcome Brydie and I’m very happy to write your name all over them 😀
This sounds so good! I love that it’s almost a pastry biscuit with a gooey lovely middle.
Thanks Caroline. Trying to classify these was really rather difficult – a pastry biscuit sounds good to me 🙂
What a gorgeous combination! The walnut pastry sounds incredible and goes so well with the liquid chocolate filling – delicious!
Thanks Katharine – the filling oozing out over crumbly pastry was really rather special, if very naughty 😉
oh yummy yum yum! Walnut & Chocolate a classic combo!
Thanks Poyma, yes a lovely combination indeed.
Oh, don’t they look nice!! So pretty with the walnut half decorating the top! Perfect for Valentine’s Day, as you say! x
Thank you Celia, if I didn’t have cake club on Valentine’s Day, I’d be very tempted to make them again 🙂
These look terrific! I’ll need to check out the chocolate spread.
Be careful, that chocolate spread is dangerous stuff 😉
These look really delicious and such a good idea too.
Thanks Maggie 🙂
These look amazing! Did you find it quite a lot of pastry and chocolate spread to get through, or are they the perfect single portion size? I can’t quite work out how big they are from the pics!
Well depends on the person as to perfect portion size. Being piggies CT and I were happy to eat a whole one each. They are about 10 cm diameter on top and 8 cm diameter at bottom.
Delicious-looking treats. You’re making me crave chocolate spread. I can’t remember the last time I had any.
Probably as long ago as me Phil. Somehow, it doesn’t seem very adult to eat chocolate spread :-S
What a brilliant idea. That chocolate spread melting out from warm nutty pastry sounds just about perfect. I am interested in finding out more about this lovely chocolate spread and there is nothing better than home made treats such as these 🙂
Thank you Laura, I so wished I’d tried these warm now. Having said that, I now have a perfect excuse to make them again. These are definitely on my make again and again list.
How delicious. I’m really interested to read your review of the chocolate spread, too : )
Thanks Charlotte. I’ve posted the review now.
Oh my goodness those look good Choclette. I would never have thought of that. You are a genius lady!
Thanks Jac *blushes hugely*.
Wowzers! These look just soo very beautiful and rich! Love that light brown crusty with the pretty walnut embellishment! So classic looking!
Thank you Susan, I am, errr, rather partial to rich chocolate pastries 🙂
Those look very good indeed. I love how simple the outside seems only to reveal a gooey chocolate spread filling!
Thanks Janice – they were a good foil for each other.
these look amazing and really delicious I love walnuts!!
Thank you Gloria, walnuts really are wonderful.
They’re very pretty indeed – your pastry looks delicious. And a house full of chocolate spread can never be a bad thing. I’d be interested in recommendations for chocolate spread without nuts though – you don’t see very much of it or it tends to be made using lower quality ingredients….
These Atkins and Potts are pretty good Caroline and NO NUTS. I’ve reviewed them on my next post.
A house full of chocolate spread… you’re living the dream!
Not much point having a chocolate blog if you can’t live the dream 😉
I have some wholemeal spelt left – what a fab way to use it!
Oh do CC, do 🙂
They sound wonderful. I’ve not tried wholemeal flour in a sweet pastry before, something I should really try. Also love the walnut and chocolate spread combo, they’d be gone in a flash here!
I grew up with wholemeal flour, it’s white flour which is still a novelty for me 🙂
I’m sure they didn’t last long!! What a delightful combination with the walnut and chocolate.
Luckily for us Kate, chocolate is a real star; it goes with just about everything 😉
Oh, oh, they look so wonderful and … I need to check my supply of chocolate spread.
And did you find any Chocolate spread Chris?
Love these walnut pastries..they look fabulous!
Thank you Angie
Looks good! The pastry sure good to go with any sweet filling. Thanks for sharing!
You’re right Vivian, these would be really good with a nice homemade jam too.
These look & sound absolutely divine!! I adore walnuts, so that’s a great start…and anything short & crumbly too! Will be making for dessert tonight, definitely. Have a great day, hope all is good with you x
Oh Rachel, you are lovely. So glad they inspired you to make your wonderful cookies.
Oh My Gawd C these look totally divine! I’m loving that pastry recipe so much. It sounds incredible and I must get me some of that spread. Oh yes!
Aww, thanks Dom. They were pretty wondrous and if you’re not greedy like us, just perfect for sharing 😉