dark chocolate tartlets with pretzel crust and rose peppercorn sea salt

A few weeks ago, we invited our neighbors over for a casual last-minute BBQ, and as we were prepping the food I realized that we didn't have anything for dessert! I instantly thought about using the adorable baking and dessert salts that Expertly Chosen had sent me a couple of months ago! I thought a simple and quick dark chocolate tart would be the perfect thing to use them on, and since I love dark chocolate-covered pretzels (especially the ones at Trader Joe's!), I decided to make a simple pretzel crust to go with it.

With a quick online search, I found this pretzel crust recipe from Betty Crocker, which sounded perfect! So I ground up the pretzels in my food processor with sugar, and then poured in melted butter to bring it together. (Although in the future, I would probably add a little bit more butter to hold it together better).

Then I scooped the pretzel mixture into mini tart tins, and pressed it into the bottom and sides of the tins. (I used 4-inch tart tins, and was able to get 9 mini tart crusts out of the pretzel mixture). I baked them at 350F for about 10 minutes just to set them a bit, and then set them aside to cool.

For the chocolate ganache filling, I used this recipe from Sweetapolita (just the ganache part), except I had to double the recipe to be able to fill all 9 tarts. Then I sprinkled on my flavored salts.

For the BBQ, I had sprinkled on the "espresso salt", which went nicely with the dark chocolate. But the next day, I had two leftover tarts that I hadn't added the baking salt to yet, and I thought I would try another flavor. I ended up choosing the "rose peppercorn salt", mainly because I thought the dried rose petals were so pretty (and also how cute would these rose petal tarts be for Valentine's Day?)!



The rose peppercorn salt gave the tarts a delicately flowery yet peppery flavor, which also went quite well with the dark chocolate. And honestly, I think every one of the salts would have paired well!

With this specific set, the options include:

Vanilla Cardamom Salt
Espresso Salt
Rose Peppercorn Salt
Hibiscus Salt
Orange Ginger Salt
Vanilla Lavendar Salt

Thanks again for the baking and dessert salts, Expertly Chosen! I can't wait to try them all!