Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart with Puppy Chow
This recipe is especially meaningful to me because puppy chow was one of the very first treats I learned to make growing up. Being from Illinois, it always felt like such a classic Midwestern staple. It became my go-to sweet snack that I’d make for friends and family, and it was always a crowd favorite. I especially loved making it during the holidays—adding it to cookie tins or mixing in M&Ms for a festive touch. It’s a nostalgic recipe that reminds me of home and the joy of sharing something simple and delicious with the people I love.
Ingredients
Homemade Puppy Chow
Shortbread Cookie Recipe
2.5 g vanilla extract
225 g unsalted butter
150 g granulated sugar
290 g A.P. flour
34 g cornstarch
3 g salt
Chocolate Peanut Butter Mixture:
700 g shortbread cookie crumble
140 g Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Chips
140 g peanut butter
200 g powder sugar
Chocolate Tart Dough
215 g A.P. flour
15 g Guittard Cocoa Rouge
100 g sugar
3 g salt
115 g Butter
40 g yolks
37 g heavy cream
10 g honey
2 g vanilla extract
Chocolate Ganache
200 g cream
200 g 55% La Nuit Noire or another Guittard chocolate of your liking
40 g butter
2 g salt
Peanut Butter Diplomat Cream
320 g milk
60 g sugar
40 g yolks
12 g cornstarch
1.5 g salt
80 g peanut butter
1.5 sheets gelatin
150 g cream, whipped soft peaks
Directions
Homemade Puppy Chow
Shortbread Cookie Recipe
Cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add in your vanilla extract and dry ingredients and mix until combined and crumbly.
Line sheet pan with parchment and preheat oven to 325 F. Spread crumb mixture on sheet pan. Bake and stir every 5 minutes until light golden brown. You can take a bench knife and break up into smaller chunks if you’d like. Let it cool down.
Chocolate peanut butter mixture:
Place crumble in a large bowl or plastic bag.
Melt chocolate and peanut butter together.
Add melted ingredients to the crumble and stir to combine or shake in bag. I find using my hands or shaking in a bag a lot easier so you can get everything coated evenly. Once it’s all coated, add your powder sugar and shake/stir until it’s evenly coated. Then enjoy!
Chocolate Tart Dough
Paddle together sifted dry ingredients into a bowl. Add in your cold cubed butter. Paddle until the the mixture is crumbly. Add in your yolks, cream, honey and vanilla extract. Paddle until combined. Chill for a couple hours before rolling out.
Roll out to preferred tart thickness, about 1/4-1/2cm thick. Punch out circle that is a bit larger than your tart ring. Mold into tart pan. Dock holes with a fork. Chill for 30 minutes before baking. Bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes if using small tart molds. If using a large tart pan, bake for 15 minutes.
Chocolate Ganache
Bloom gelatin in cold water.
In a bowl, combine yolks and cornstarch, whisk and set aside.
Bring milk and sugar to a boil and temper into cornstarch/yolk mixture. Pour back into pot and continue whisking until it starts to thicken and bubbles. Once you see it bubble, whisk for another 30 seconds. Turn off heat. Add peanut butter and bloomed gelatin. Stir until combined. Pour into container and chill. While waiting for it to cool (takes a couple hours in fridge). You can whisk cream until soft peaks and set aside in fridge. Take the cooled pastry cream and paddle until smooth in mixer or by hand. Fold in cream. Put into piping bag with a large piping tip. Once the ganache has set in the tart you can pipe the peanut butter cream on top. Garnish with your puppy chow mixture.
