No-Bake Peanut Butter and Chocolate Tart - for the soul

Life has its ups and downs. Sometimes when you think you're on the up-swing, you're just about to hit a brick wall and plummet 50 feet. 

Some friends of ours recently got some terrible news. They live 3,000 miles away. And I, selfishly, wish I was there to hug them and hold them. Or at least bring them a casserole. 

Instead, I had a good little cry. Sometimes we need those. I'm sure that there were many, many more tears shed those many miles away. 

And then?

I made a tart. 

Cause I needed chocolate. 

And if I could ship this sucker to the East Coast without it thawing and turning into a ridiculous mess, I would. 

But it's so easy, I'm just going to post the recipe. And hope that someone over by the other ocean decides to make it and drop it by their house. 

This is definitely a healing tart. 

Start off with a package of chocolate cookies. The ones with fudge on the bottom work quite nicely. Put 3/4 of the package into a food processor. 

Blitz until you get crumbs. 

Pour in the melted butter and pulse until combined. 

Then press out into a tart pan - you can also use a pie plate. I just like the fluted edge of the tart pan better. It's fancier. 

Put it in the freezer while you make the filling. 

In a medium bowl, whip up some whipped cream. 

In a large bowl, beat together peanut butter, powdered sugar, cream cheese, and a bit of unwhipped cream. 

Fold in the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture.

Gently spoon into the tart shell that you just retrieved from the freezer. 

Top with some crumbled bits of cookie. 

Freeze again. 

Slice and serve! 
 

No-Bake Peanut Butter and Chocolate Tart
Inspired by a ridiculous photo I saw on Pinterest

1 package chocolate fudge cookies
5 tbsp butter, melted
6 oz (1/2 c.) cream cheese, softened
1/3 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. powdered sugar
1 c. heavy whipping cream, divided

In a food processor, blitz three quarters of the cookies in the package. Leave some for garnish. Once the cookies resemble sand, pour in the melted butter and pulse to combine. 

Dump out the chocolate mud into a large tart shell. Press to the edges to form your crust. Put in the freezer.

In a medium bowl, beat 3/4 c. of the whipping cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. (You can buy whipped topping and skip this step, but I think more highly of you than that.)

In a large bowl, beat the peanut butter, powdered sugar, cream cheese and the remaining 1/4 c. of whipping cream together with the electric mixer. Beat until smooth. If you didn't let your cream cheese soften enough, this part will take a while. 

Fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Gently spoon into the tart shell. Top with the left over cookies, broken into small-ish pieces. Return to freezer for at least 2 hours. 

Serve!