Chocolate and hazelnut praline tartlets

Chocolate and hazelnut is a combination widely used in pastry kitchen. I absolutely adore this flavour! Do you know of anyone who would say no to Nutella? Me neither :)
I found this recipe in a 'Best of Christophe Michalak'  book but I adapted it to my requirements and resources.

CHOCOLATE SPONGE - 10cm flan rings x10
3 eggs (150g)
60g caster sugar
pinch of salt
50g pastry flour
15g cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 200C. Beat the egg whites with sugar and salt.
Sift the flour and cocoa together and set aside. Start adding egg yolks to the mixture one at a time, constantly whisking. At the end gently fold the flour and cocoa powder with a spatula. Bake it for about 5-7min.

Baking time depends on vessel you will be using. I used 10cm tart ring because I love the look of round desserts. There is no rule.

Batter will rise a little so don't fill the form to the top. You will need some room for the mousse as well.

CHOCOLATE 'SOAK'
120g water
40g caster sugar
10g cocoa powder
Bring everything to boil. Let it cool and soak the sponge with the brush.

MILK CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

80g whipping cream 36%

80g whole milk

10g brown sugar

1 egg yolk (30g)

90g milk chocolate 32% *

235g milk chocolate 43%*

275g whipped cream (soft peaks)

Chop the chocolate and put it in the bowl. In a pan mix cream, milk, brown sugar and egg yolk together. Bring it to 85C. 

Pour it over the chocolate, wait a little and mix it together.

When it will reach 40C fold in whipped cream.

* I used widely available chocolate from the local supermarket but the cocoa solids percentage was as close as I could find to the original recipe. Sometimes it is very hard to get exact same ingredient but I can't see why you  could't use a substitute.

Put about 100g of mousse in the pastry bag  and leave it in the fridge. The rest divide between the tarts, pouring it on the top. Put it into the freezer for good few hours, ideally overnight.

HAZELNUT PRALINE

130g caster sugar

100g blanched and roasted hazelnuts

pinch of salt

Cook sugar until brown. Put hazelnuts on sheet of baking paper or silicon mat and pour sugar over them. Add pinch of salt. Let it cool and use the blender to grind them. Congratulations! You have just made a praline noisette.

Assembling the tarts is absolutely individual thing. You can go for layered version (sponge, mousse, praline) or use a mousse which was set aside in the fridge to make little 'dots' which will hold chocolate. You can experiment, it is entirely up to you how finished product will look like. 

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 For finishing touches I used a chocolate decoration topped with gold leaf and a praline sprinkles