It’s the very first Notebook recipe post!

I whipped up these little tarts for a party for the teachers at my son’s school. I wanted to make something fun and rich. And I didn’t know if there would be silverware (or plasticware) at the party, so I figured I should go with something in individual servings.

I remembered this pie from The Pioneer Woman, and thought that I could maybe adapt it, and make it simpler. I found this on Tasty Kitchen, and decided to use that as my starting point. My next idea was to incorporate Nutella, because hazelnuts make everything better. Then I remembered this recipe that I had read on Smitten Kitchen, and thought that maybe a layer of jam underneath the chocolate would be fun.

So the little guy and I washed our hands and got started….

I’m not going to pretend here: I used frozen pie crust for my tarts. But if you have the time and inclination to make your crust from scratch, you could try my favorite pie crust recipe, for Pastry in the Food Processor from James Beard. You can find it here. I used three 9″ pie crusts and got about 36 mini tarts.

No matter what dough you use, roll it out to about an 1/8″ thick…

…and cut out approximately 2″-diameter circles (or have your assistant do it).

Fit those circles of dough into a mini muffin pan, pressing them down and smooshing them together where necessary, and then poke the bottoms with a fork a couple of times so that they don’t puff up too much as they bake.

Bake for about 10-14 minutes at 325˚, until they’re golden brown on the edges.

While they’re baking, you can put together the chocolate filling. Mix together one 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk, one bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and about 1/4 cup of Nutella.

You can melt it in your double-boiler, or you can look for your double-boiler, remember that you lent it to your sister-in-law and never got it back, and then melt it in a big microwave-safe ceramic bowl. However you do it, once it starts getting mushy whisk it together until it’s smooth and satiny.

Once the shells are baked and cooled, put a schmear of orange marmalade (or whatever jam you fancy) on the bottom of each one.

Then fill them up with a tablespoonfull or so of the chocolate-hazelnut goodness. I used a large spoon to scoop and a smaller spoon to scrape, and ended up with an endearingly messy result. If you’d like something more polished, you could load the chocolate mixture into a pastry bag and pipe it into the shells.

And that’s that!

You’ll have a bunch of the chocolate filling left over, but I’m sure you can find a good use for it…