Almond Joy Tart

I find that lately I am running into two kinds of people. Those who like coconut and those who don't. The Almond Joy candy bar has long since been a favorite of mine and irresistible in those cute small bite size pieces. In fact a co-worker of mine recently admitted (during Halloween) that she has a weakness for Almond Joy's and has to put the bag far far away from her or remove it from the house. As she is a beautiful young woman in the fitness industry and takes very good care of herself, I took this as a sign that we are all human and indeed the Almond Joy is beloved.

Admittedly, I was not excited about doing this recipe -at first. However,as I put the components together, I quickly remembered how good all these flavors are going to be as one. The tart crust has ground almonds in it, you have the rum and coconut and cream in the filling, and then a beautiful layer of chocolate on top garnished with some toasted almonds. Yum!  As this was my first tart, of course I loved the learning experience of baking and building this.

Baking the Tart: Despite using the foil/dried beans to weigh down the dough as it baked for the first 15 minutes , I still got lift in the center when it then baked on it's own the last 10 min (of 25). I will have to look into resolving that for next time. It only happened on 2 tarts and I can see on the bottom of the tart where there is some slight indentation. Not noticeable-but nothing like perfecting technique. And I need to roll my dough a bit thinner next time.

Coconut Cream Filling: I ended up having extra filling (??) and overfilled my tarts with the cream and threw the excess out. I think next time I will fill them less so I can leave some extra space for the chocolate to fill the top/center and nicely nestle into the sides of the crust. Mine came out looking not as refined as I would have liked but a successful first attempt.

Morgan is Mommy's little helper

Overall the recipe, to bake and build, is quite simple! It's just a bit time consuming with some of the product time requirements, which is what anyone doing this recipe, needs to know up front so you can plan this into a schedule and around other things.

• The dough needs to be made and left to sit in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight
• The cream needs to be made and set in the fridge while baking the tarts
• After the dough is rolled out and filled in the tart pans, set in freezer for 30 min
• Baking is a fast 25 min (15 with pie weights/10 without)
• Let completely cool
• Assemble/add chocolate topping,/ in fridge for 10 minutes to let chocolate set up

I have had other time consuming projects with the starts and stops but was surprised this little diddy had so much going in to it.

Textural goodness! Creamy, Crunchy, Chocolatey

To obtain this recipe and the 'How To', please visit our Club Baked Members site: Sassy is Baking

It is never too late to join Club Baked! We love getting new members to bake along with as we journey through the Baked Explorations baking book. If you would like to join our group, please visit our Club Baked site and get in touch with Karen, our group leader.

Coming up:

December 15th - Baked French Toast