TWD: Caramel Crunch Tart with Nougat Ice Cream

Hello, Snickers bar disguised as a fancy tart! I mean, that’s what this was, right? A crispy tart shell encased a fabulously dark caramel sauce studded with salty peanuts, topped by a rich chocolate ganache. Caramel + peanuts + chocolate = Snickery goodness. Of course, this tart was waaaay better than your common candy bar.
I decided to dress this tart up a bit by sprinkling crushed peanuts in a ring on top, and making some sugar corkscrew curls. The stars aligned and I was a sugar spinnin’ rockstar, making dozens in no time flat. Usually I decide to play with sugar on the one day a year we get rain in LA, and the humidity wreaks havoc, so this was a welcome break from pattern.

I kind of couldn’t stop taking pictures of the corkscrews and making “booooiiiing” noises in my head. They were mesmerizing:

You’ll poke your eye out, kid!

I loved this tart because, although the flavors were familiar, almost common, it tasted very sophisticated, I think because it really wasn’t very sweet. I cooked my caramel very dark so it had that smoky-verging-on-burnt taste, and I used salted peanuts instead of honey roasted to keep it sort of savory. I used a fairly dark chocolate, too, and the combination of these fillings meant that this was a very “adult” dessert.

Of course, I had to go ahead and ruin the sophistication with some ice cream! I couldn’t get the Snickers comparison out of my head, so I made some nougat ice cream to complete the similarity. The real Snickers candy bars have a peanut-flavored nougat, while this one is more of a traditional Torrone-style nougat flavor. However, the sweet honey and almond flavors, and the creamy texture, were the perfect complement to the tart. Even if you’ve already devoured your tart, bookmark this nougat ice cream recipe–it’s one of my favorites (and no ice cream maker required!)

Also, I’ve put together a tutorial showing how to make sugar corkscrews!

I taught myself how to make them by reading other recipes, and had some frustrations in the beginning, because I didn’t realize how the sugar should look and behave when it was ready to be spun. Once I got my sugar to the right stage/temperature, it became really, really easy. So hopefully this tutorial will help by showing exactly what texture and appearance the sugar should have. I put it up on my candy site, check it out here: How to Make Sugar Corkscrews. Let me know if you guys try it out!