Chocolate Cream Pies

As a child I had a penchant for those clear pots of smooth chocolate dessert topped with sweetened whipped cream. To be honest I could happily demolish one now, but here's my version in pastry cases:

For the pastry cases

Ingredients

4oz plain flour
Pinch salt
2 tsp sugar
2oz butter
30ml or more of cold water

Method

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.
Cut the butter into small dice and rub into the flour with finger tips.
Once it all looks like fine bread crumbs, add 2 tablespoons of water and bring together with a butter-knife to start forming a firm dough, you may need a tad more water if it doesn't start coming together. Form a ball of dough in your hands, cover in food wrap and place in the fridge for half an hour.
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to the thickness of a penny.
Cut out discs with a cm pastry cutter and carefully place the discs in a greased muffin tin, reforming the dough, rolling out and cutting again until you have 12 discs (there is only just enough pastry to do this)
Oven fired up and set to gas mark 5.
Place the lined muffin tin in the fridge while your oven heats up, this should stop the pastry shrinking when it is baked.
Bake in the oven for 7 minutes then remove from the oven, brush with egg wash (egg yolk with a dash of milk) pushing back any pastry that has ballooned up.
Return to the oven for a further 14 minutes.

For the filling

Ingredients

2 Tbsp Cocoa powder
1 heaped tsp instant coffee (optional)
1oz Cornflour
2 Tbsp Milk
15 fl oz Milk
Sugar
Butter

Method

Slake the cocoa and cornflour (and possibly the coffee, decaff if preferred) with the 2 tbsp milk.
Heat the 3/4 pint milk to boiling then whisk into the cocoa paste and place in a pan and boil for 2 mins, whisking.
Heat off.
Whisk in 1oz butter and 4 tbsp caster sugar.
Whisk for 2 mins.
Pour into pastry cases.
Cool over night.

For the Chantilly Cream topping

Ingredients

10 fl oz Whipping cream
2 tsp icing sugar
2 tsp Amaretto (optional)
Part of a small bar of chocolate

Method 

Whip the cream, then add the icing sugar or use only 1 tsp icing sugar and add the Amaretto liqueur before whisking again.

Pipe the cream onto the pies and grate chocolate over the top.