Have you ever eaten something so good it makes you want to punch, slap or kick shit? This tart will do just that.

I first got wind of this tart from Catherine on Twitter. She wrote something about a reviewer stating, “This tart is so good, I want to punch people when I eat it.” I knew exactly what the person meant. Of course I had to make it. So Catherine sent me the link and I made it that very day.

You should make it too. And feel free to modify it, as I have below. Although the original is perfectly amazing as is.

I’ve made this tart three times. The first time, I followed the recipe, changing only the crust as I didn’t have any chocolate graham crackers. (I normally don’t have any graham crackers in the house at all, but we’d gone upstate a few months back and made s’mores and I took the remaining crackers home with us.) But don’t worry! If you don’t have graham crackers, you can use pate sucree, my favorite homemade crust. The second time I made this tart, I used pate sucree.

Anyway, the recipe below features a graham cracker crust, this time I added a flavor and I’m quite pleased with the end result.

What you will need

• Fluted Tart pan
• Bowl
• Whisk

Ingredients

For crust:

• 9 graham crackers (basically, one package, mashed up)
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sugar

For filling:

• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• flavoring, in this case three Earl Grey teabags
• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate (less than 65% cocoa)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

For glaze:

• 2 tablespoon heavy cream
• 1 3/4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon warm water

Mom It Down!

Preheat oven to 350.

On stovetop, bring cream to slight boil. Remove from heat, add teabags, set aside.

While the tea is steeping, crush up graham crackers. I used my hands. Hands are handy! The big pieces will mash up even more when you add the sugar and butter and press it into the pan.

Add butter and sugar and mash it up some more.

Press it into a buttered flute pan.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Go back to your tea and cream mixture. Ring out your teabags being careful not to tear the bags.

Put 9 ounces of chocolate into a metal bowl. Set aside.

Reheat your tea and cream mixture. Pour it over the chocolate. Leave it for a couple of minutes.

While that’s melting the chocoalte, in separate bowl, add salt, eggs and vanilla.

Whisk that together.

Delicately whisk the cream/chocolate mixture without agitating it too much. (You don’t want to add a bunch of air to the mixture.)

Add egg mixture to the chocolate. Pour over baked pie crust.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the sides are baked and the middle wobbles a bit. It will continue to cook after you remove it from the oven. Like this:

The sides will flatten as it cools. The tart will be very level. Let it cool completely.

When you’re ready and the tart is cool, take two tablespoons of heavy cream and microwave it for about 50 seconds. (You can boil it too, but it’s hard to boil that small amount, so I just microwaved it until it was hot.) Pour over chopped chocolate, whisk until it melts. If you have trouble getting it all to melt with that small amount of cream, feel free to put it over a pot of simmering water, or a bain-marie. That’ll take care of business. You want it to be SUPER smooth. Add your water and light corn syrup, and pour it over tart. Turn tart to coat it evenly with the glaze.

You’re done! Let it sit for an hour, until the top hardens and cools.

Overcoming obstacles.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can break it up over the course of the day. You don’t have to do it all at once. You can do the crust and leave it for however long. You can make the ganache, bake it and then leave it for however long. I would suggest measuring out all the ingredients, preparing and baking the crust, then go clean the house or something. Make the ganache filling, bake the tart and then go put the baby to sleep, walk to dog—whatever. Come back to it later when you have another 30 minutes. The last time I made this, I took a nap with a sick baby while the tart cooled (for two hours!). This is a very easy recipe that tastes impossibly not easy. It tastes better than it looks.

Variations

Dude, you can flavor this puppy so many different ways. When I was in school, we infused cream for ganache with citrus, tea, ginger—you name it. Or just make it with some amazing high-end chocolate.

That’s another thing, the better the chocolate, the more amazing the ganache. However, the first time I messed with ganache at home, I used Baker’s Chocolate. I used Baker’s for the first attempt at this tart as well. It’s easy to find and cheaper than most high-end chocolate. So if you screw up, you don’t feel as bad. High-end chocolate can cost a pretty penny! But if you want to knock the pants off people? I recommend getting some super awesome chocolate.

If you have questions about how to flavor the ganache, ask away! I will happily help out.

Nutritional Stuff

One more thing: I calculated the calories (because I am still watching my calorie intake every day) and the whole pie is roughly 4400 calories. Each slice (It’s rich! So good luck eating more than the sliver shown above!) is roughly 270 – 300 calories assuming you get anywhere from 16 to 18 slices per pie. I don’t think that’s too bad! :]