Swiss Carac – with red fondant and a white cross

For the caracs, first make the Ganache. Simply bring the full cream to the boil together with the butter in a pan. As soon as the cream boils, pour it over the Dark couverture drops and let it stand for one minute. Then stir with a Whisk until you get a smooth Ganache. If the Ganache still has small lumps, warm it over a bain-marie until all the lumps have dissolved.

Then fill the finished Ganache into a Piping bag.

Fill the pre-baked tartelettes directly with the still-warm Ganache, as this makes it much easier and more even to spread the Ganache in the shortcrust pastry base. For our recipe we used 12 tartelettes of Ø 7 cm, as this size is perfect for our Swiss cross Cookie cutter. But you can just as easily use smaller tartelettes. When filling, leave enough space to the edge so that you later have room for the Soft melting fondant. Once all the tartelettes are filled, tap each one gently on the table so that the Ganache spreads even more nicely and evenly over the surface.

Put the filled caracs in the fridge for about 30 minutes so that the Ganache can firm up.

In a pan, warm a little apricot jam with some water. Then take the cooled caracs out of the fridge. The Ganache should now have firmed up sufficiently. Brush each individual tartelette with a thin layer of the warm jam. The jam ensures that your caracs have a particularly nice shine after being coated with Soft melting fondant.

In a separate pan, bring 15 g of water to the boil with 30 g of granulated sugar. As soon as it boils, let the Syrup boil for one minute and then take the pan off the heat. You need the sugar Syrup to thin out the Soft melting fondant.

Next you need white Soft melting fondant. For 12 tartelettes you need about 500 g. Put the Soft melting fondant in a pan and pour in the Syrup (hot or cold). Melt the Fondant on a low setting, stirring occasionally. This takes a few minutes until the thick Soft melting fondant liquefies. Once it has become nicely liquid, check the temperature with a digital Thermometer: it should be about 35 °C.

You can also colour the Soft melting fondant with a generous amount of red Gel color so that it gets a bright red for the Swiss caracs.

Once the Soft melting fondant is sufficiently coloured red and has reached the ideal temperature of 35 °C, you can fill the Fondant into a Piping bag. Then cut a small opening in the Piping bag and start at the edge of the carac, filling it up with Soft melting fondant until it is completely glazed with a nice, even layer.

After glazing, tap each individual carac briefly by hand so that the still-runny Fondant layer can spread evenly. Repeat this step until every single carac is coated with Fondant.

Next you need a little white Sugar paste. Knead the Sugar paste briefly by hand and then roll it out on a little Magic roll-out powder with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 3 mm.

Then, using a Swiss cross Cookie cutter, cut twelve nice crosses out of the Fondant.

Place a white cross in the centre of each carac – ideally right after glazing, while the red Fondant is still moist. That way the cross sticks on its own. If the icing has already dried, a tiny dab of water or Liquid fondant on the back of the cross helps.

Then let the finished caracs dry at room temperature until the icing is firm and glossy.