A Sweet for My Sweet

First of all, I'd like to wish all my readers a very Happy Valentines Day. Today marked the official beginning of my baking challenge. I baked my first dessert, my gift to my valentine.
  
I wanted to maximize the time my boyfriend and I would spend together today so I made the tart yesterday and quickly did the glaze this evening when I got home. Like many of the reviewers on Epicurious, I had difficulties finding chocolate graham cracker crumbs, so I used Teddy Grahams instead. I couldn't find the big box of them so I used 4 of the snack-sized packets. I had lots of fun  smashing them in a ziploc bag using the flat side of a meat tenderizer. Then I made the crust. If I ever make this recipe again, I would use 1.5-2 times the amount of crust ingredients because I found that the recommended amount was not enough to get the nice crust in their picture. I baked the crust and set it to cool.

The hardest part of the recipe was actually chopping up the chocolate I had bought. I got it from a baking store that buys a large quantity of chocolate and cuts it up, selling it by weight. The blocks were hard to cut, but after that, I couldn't believe how easy my first tart was. After combining all the ingredients and baking it, I set it to cool.

The tart developed bubbles in it while it was baking so the top didn't end up as smooth as I had anticipated. Still, it looked pretty delicious and I was beaming with excitement and pride. I tucked it in the fridge overnight.

Today when I got home, I allowed it to get to room temperature, made the glaze and applied it to the tart.

After eating a sumptuous dinner prepared diligently by my bf, it was my turn to serve my dessert. I chose to serve it with a little whipped cream.

And guess what? It was deeeeeeeelicious!! Smooth, rich, creamy and ultra chocolaty. So it wasn't completely perfect. It didn't look exactly like the picture but it was a delectable end to a wonderful dinner, my valentine loved it and it was certainly fun. I can't wait to try something new next week. If you'd like to try out the recipe yourself, here's the link http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Glazed-Chocolate-Tart-243610

Oh, and to all my friends who read my blog, feel free to come grab a slice. Tony and I are stuffed!