Most delicious richness ever: Snickers Tart

I was invited to attend a Halloween carnival with my friend Stephanie this past weekend and there happened to be a dessert contest following for the 'young adults' of her church. Now, I love me some competition and Halloween AND baking so this was going to be money. The contest indicated that the dessert had to be Halloween-ish and I had this recipe from the last Martha Stewart Living that I was waiting for a reason to try. The dessert was called a Peanut, Caramel, and Chocolate Tart but I call it the Snickers-inspired Tart. This is not for the faint of heart, I can barely finish a sliver per sitting. It's uber decadent and somewhat time consuming. Here are some of my pictures of the final product (*note: they do not do it justice, see pictures from Martha's website):
Assembly Line of Ingredients:

The Mangled first slice (there were only plastic knives at the event):

Clean slice:




Snickers-Inspired Tart (from Martha Stewart Living)

Cookie Crust:
1 (9oz) box chocolate wafer cookies, finely ground (for this I bought a package of store brand oreos and scraped the cream off the center and blended the cookies in my blender)
1 T sugar
1/4t salt
1 stick butter, melted (perhaps less because my crust was rock hard)

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine cookie crumbs, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in butter. Press mixture into bottom and up the sides of a 9" springform pan. Bake until dry and firm, about 10 minutes. Cool completely.


Caramel Sauce:
1 1/4c sugar
1/4c water
1c heavy cream
1/3c creme fraiche (I used crema mexicana)
1c roasted salted peanuts

Heat sugar and water in a medium saucepan over med-high heat until a dark amber color (about 12 minutes). Carefully add heavy cream (it will bubble and hiss). Bring mixture to a boil and melt any caramel that seized when cream was added. Transfer to a medium bowl and stir in creme fraiche. Refrigerate until cool. I actually froze mine for about an hour to speed the process up. fold in peanuts.


Peanut Butter Mousse:
1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2c powdered sugar
1/2t salt
1 1/4c smooth peanut butter (I used reduced fat JIF)
1/2t vanilla
1c heavy cream

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until fluffy. Beat in salt. Add peanut butter and vanilla, beat until well combined. In a separate bowl, whisk heavy cream until medium stiffness peaks form. Fold whipped cream into peanut butter mixture in 3 additions, making sure whipped cream is fully incorporated for each addition.


**Here you should assemble the parts of the tart that you have. Pour the caramel into the crust and then carefully spread peanut butter mousse over the caramel, ensuring that the layers don't mix. You can also refrigerate the crust with the caramel sauce for 30 minutes to ensure no mixing of layers. After you add the peanut butter, refrigerate for 30 minutes.


Chocolate Ganache:
8oz semisweet chocolate
1c heavy cream

In small saucepan, bring heavy cream to a simmer over med-high heat. Remove from heat. Add chocolate to the cream and let sit for 1 minute. Whisk until completely combined. Pour ganache over peanut butter mousse layer. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Really involved process, but totally worth it! Enjoy!

P.S. I won a $10 gift card for winning the dessert contest!