Chocolate Crunched Caramel Tart

This delicious two-layered tart comes from Dorie Greenspan's collection. This isn't a Tuesdays with Dorie recipe (yet), but I decided to make it after a friend of mine came over for a visit. My friend wanted to bake something, but I couldn't come up with anything off the top of my head, so I tossed my Dorie baking book to her and told her to pick something out. She saw the pictures of this delicious tart and decided, without pause, that we'd make it that night.

The tart uses Dorie's sweet tart shell as a crust. This is always a good route to go with these tarts - it's delicious all on its own, like a big, but subtle, sugar cookie. The dessert is layered first by salty peanuts smothered with homemade caramel sauce. Next time, I'd smash them up with a mallet a bit, or give them a few pulses in a food processor to break them up, but the addition of the nuts to the caramel gooey goodness is great.

Finally, the dish is topped with a smooth bittersweet chocolate ganache. Every bite of the dessert has the delicious mixture of sugar crust, chocolate, nuts, and caramel. It's sort of like biting into a Snickers bar, but the texture is much softer, and it's not overly sweet.

Recipe: Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, pp. 355-357