Store-bought puff pastry that’s been filled with peppermint flavoured dulce de leche aka caramel treat and topped with dark chocolate ganache and crushed biscuits.
Over Christmas, we get to indulge in so many of our favourite desserts and with South Africa being so rich in its diversity it’s a pretty rare sight for any Christmas table to look alike. Coming from an Afrikaans family there’d always be that one dessert that we knew we’d get to enjoy when visiting my aunt in Pretoria over Christmas and that was her famous peppermint fridge tart. Layers of peppermint crisp chocolate, whipped cream, caramel and tennis biscuits.
I personally love a little minty freshness with chocolate. You almost feel like you don’t have to brush your teeth afterwards, but really, you do. It’s one of those combinations that you either love or hate. So I had puff pastry in my freezer and peppermint flavoured dolce de Leche in the pantry so I decided to create my own spin on the old school fridge tart. The original is still the best but sometimes we’re looking for same-same but different.
Notes: Feel free to make these in the Air Frier if you’d like just bake them at 200 degrees celsius for 5-7mins (in a preheated Air Frier).
Ingredients
- ½ cup flour for dusting
- 400 g store-bought puff pastry defrosted
- 360 g can dulce de leche aka caramel treat
- 1 tbsp coconut oil melted
- 60 ml heavy cream warmed
- 80 g dark chocolate
- 50 g Tennis biscuits crushed
Instructions
- Remove the puff pastry from its packaging and place it on a sheet of baking paper that has been dusted generously with flour. Roll the sheet out until it's double in length. Cut in half and place in the fridge (with a dusted baking sheet on the bottom).
- On the remaining half add dollops of the caramel treat/dulce de leche. I use a tablespoon worth of the caramel treat and make sure there's about half an inch or 2cm space between each spoonful.
- Using water, brush a border around each dollop as this will act as glue between the two sheets of pastry dough.
- Remove the cooled pastry dough from the fridge and before placing it on top of the other half, make sure it's slightly bigger as it needs to cover the bottom half. So feel free to roll it out once more before placing it on top.
- When placing the dough on top of the caramel treats, push the pastry dough down ensuring it's sealed and no unnecessary air is trapped inside.
- Cut or trim the pockets as desired, you can go for a simple square look or use a cookie cutter - it's your choice.
- Place the trimmed puff pastry pockets in the fridge while you preheat your oven and prepare the toppings. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius.
- Warm the heavy cream and add dark chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has fully melted and set aside to cool down. Add the biscuits to a blender and blend until you've reached your desired crumb size.
- Remove the pastries from the fridge. You can keep the pastries on the original baking sheet or place them on a fresh sheet if you'd like. Brush each one with melted coconut oil (or a scrambled egg if you'd like). Bake the pastries in batches for 15-20mins at 200 degrees celsius. I lean towards 15mins but it depends on your oven's accuracy.
- Once the pastries have cooled, drizzle over the ganache and biscuit crumb and enjoy!