No-Bake Caramel & Peanut Chocolate Tart | Bigger Bolder Baking

Hi Bold Bakers, as you can see I'm on location today. I'm on a busy street in Culver City in Los Angeles where I'm going to bake a recipe from my first cookbook with Jessica and Kevin. I have challenged them to make any recipe out of my book with the limited space and the limited equipment that they have in their apartment. My book is all about getting anyone to bake with confidence anytime, anywhere. So let's go see what they do. So meet Kevin and Jessica. You guys recently moved in together and you graduated college recently. So this is your lovely place in Los Angeles. It's quite intimate, this kitchen. Yeah, it's cozy for sure. And I'm guessing you guys don't have a huge amount of equipment in here. No, we do not. So the guys very boldly accepted a challenge to make any recipe out of my cookbook using whatever tools they find in their kitchen. So I'm really, really excited. Kevin, I have to know on a scale of one to ten, what are your baking skill level at? Oh man, probably a three out of ten. Three out of ten. Okay. Okay, that's reassuring. Yeah. Jessica? I'd say maybe a seven for baking. A seven? Seven's really good. Okay, well I'm a ten. And together you're a ten. So we're 20. So we're going to, we've got this covered. We're going to nail it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you my book. I'm going to let you pick any recipe you want out of it. And we are going to make it out of this lovely, cozy kitchen. Perfect. Oh, this looks super good. This salted caramel peanut. And oh, it's a chocolate tart. Okay, maybe this, should we do this one? Yeah. Okay. Looks good. Okay, Gemma, I think we found our recipe. I think we want to go with this salted caramel peanut and chocolate tart. This is one of my favorites. And I'm very happy because we don't need to put on the oven. We're going to chill this in the fridge. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a few minutes. We're going to ransack your kitchen and we're going to find all the equipment that we need to make this lovely dessert. All right. So for this recipe, I need you guys to get a small pot to make the caramel, a chopping board. We obviously need a nine inch pie tin. We need a rolling pin to make the cookie crust, a measuring jug if you have it, and also a knife. Also grab a So the base of this recipe, you guys, is my signature salted caramel sauce. And this is very conveniently placed in the Bold Baking Basics section of my cookbook. I think Jess, what we're going to do is double up and we're going to make this. And then Kevin, I'm going to have you make the cookie crust for our tart. So let's see, we need a cup of sugar in the little pot. And then I'll get you a, is it half a cup of water there? Yes. Okay, Jess, what do we do now? All right. Now it says to heat the sugar and water in a medium low heat without stirring. That looks good. Is that right? Yeah. So here's what you want to do when making caramel. You, it's kind of strange, but you always have to let the sugar dissolve before you let it come to a simmer. If you don't, it can crystallize. So we're just going to let this dissolve and we don't want any bubbles appearing on top. Then it's going to form more of a caramel and we'll add in the rest of our ingredients. Okay, great. So Jessica has our caramel under control. Kevin, this is what I'm going to get you to do. All you have to do is just bash up these cookies until they're nice and fine. And this is going to make our cookie crust. Awesome. Whatever works for, whatever works for you. With the rolling pin. Oh, with the rolling pin? See, I literally have no clue what to do. Sorry. I'm terrible at this. No, you're good. All you don't need, this isn't scale. This is just bashing. If you've bashed before, then you can do this. You can also use a food processor, but we don't have one of those. We have a rolling pin and a chopping board. So you got to do what you got. So when we were kids making cookie crust, my mom used to put all the cookies into a plastic bag and she gives a rolling pin and we'd get on the floor and we would just like have at the bag because we didn't have a food processor. So that's what we did. So that's another good option, but I think we're doing really well here. Look, they're already there. Come a long way. I really don't like getting too dirty in the kitchen, honestly. So try to keep things neat. Just kind of how I am. So that's kind of why I don't go in the kitchen that much to bake because of the whole process. It's just not my favorite process out there. And sometimes I get too caught up in trying not to make a mess. There you go. Fully doing the preparation right. Kevin, can you measure two cups of cookie crumbs into this bowl? So Kevin's doing the crust over here. We're a few minutes off on this, but it is starting to turn to that kind of like amber color. It's turning. Yeah, we're OK with this. I've got my eye on that. So what we're going to do with Kevin is line the pie tin. I'll bring you over the melted butter so you can mix it into your stuff. There's a wooden spoon for you. OK, that was my next question. That looks really good. You see what I mean about the wet sand? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of it's not soggy, but it's damp. You need it like that because otherwise your cookie crust will fall apart. So here I have your guys, your pie tin. Do you guys have cling wrap? Yes. So here's what I do. I line my pie tin with cling wrap twice so you can get your pie out after. Have you ever seen this trick before? No. No, I invented this trick. Really? Yeah, that's why I've never seen it before. I like it. Work smarter, not harder. Exactly. So there you go. That's it. So now, Kevin, you have the job of shaping this into the pie tin. Try and get it as evenly as you can all the way around. And we want the crust to come up the sides. OK. So good luck. Oh, jeez. Is this the best method? I'll show you another method. OK. I like to use my hands, too, my clean hands. I think you just get a better feel for it. So start with the sides and then keep some to shape around the bottom. There you go. Look at lovely. It's looking good. I would say just kind of compact a little bit and get it nice and tight. That's it. That's gorgeous. Do me a favor, pop this into the fridge for five minutes. We're going to set up while we finish our caramel. So it's not too far away with caramel. You have to be super, super careful. Don't walk away from a pot of simmering sugar. It's just a very bad idea. It takes a long time to get to the caramel stage, but then when it does, it happens really fast. So you always have to be close by just to be safe. So, Kevin, this is the chocolate that I randomly found in your cupboard. A little bit of everything. What I want you to do is can you get two cups of chocolate for me? Chop them up nice and small and I'm going to get you working on the ganache. Even if you want to just like run your knife, if you kind of go like this and get them all Kevin at the same time like that and like bits like that, that's perfect. There you go. I feel like Jessica got the better end of the deal here. I know, right? We thought that you did, Kevin. I thought I did too. I actually did too. I really thought you were getting the good end of the deal there. Jessica's not even doing anything over here. She's just standing here. I love it. I've been trying to teach him to chop for months now. Awesome. That's great. Can you measure two cups of chocolate into this bowl? We're going to use that for our ganache. So Jess, what do you think of this color? Oh yeah, it looks like caramel to me. I'm just going to swirl it a little bit. I'm starting to smell. You smell it as well? I do. Yeah, it's not burning. It's not smoking. It's got a lovely, rich color. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pour in this cream and I want you to stand back but whisk at the same time. Okay. Are you ready? Ready. I keep whisking and you feel that the sugar kind of stiffened underneath. That's totally normal. That'll work itself out. You just keep on whisking. Okay. It kind of dissolves. Yeah. I'm going to add in some butter. Perfect. Now that's a nice color. I wanted to get a little bit darker so we're just going to let this simmer for a few more minutes. Okay. And just keep whisking until the butter is dissolved. This is looking really good. So you cook it for around a minute or so. Then when you have it at the stage that you want, we are going to turn off the heat. Great. Now this is a salted caramel sauce. So the very last thing you do once it's off the heat, you add in different flavors. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind, Jess, getting a little bit of salt there. All right. That much? That much is great. Perfect. We're just going to eyeball it. So what we're going to do is just set that over to the side. We're going to let that cool down completely. I'm going to check on Kevin. And once we get back to it, it'll be ready to go to put into our pie. Great. So here, Kevin, here's your hot cream. Now ganache is cream and chocolate. So just pour that in there. I see we also have a little bit of milk chocolate in there. That's nice. It will be a nice balance to the little bit of sweetness to the bitter. So what we're going to do is just leave this over to the side. Let that warm cream melt the chocolate. We don't want to stir it yet. We're just going to leave it be and let it do its thing. And then in a little bit, we're going to stir it when the chocolate has dissolved. Right now. Luckily, you had peanuts in your cupboard. So these are salted roasted peanuts. So do me a favor. Can you measure out half a cup, a generous half cup of these guys and just chop them like maybe in half, like just roughly to go into the base of our pie crust. You keep going. I'm going to get the pie crust, this lovely pie crust that you made and then just go ahead, Kevin, and scatter those into the bottom of the pie crust. All of them. OK, so Kevin, I'm sorry we tried to give you I thought I was giving you the easy jobs, but because our caramel took so long, you got all the jobs, but you've done awesome so far. Just can you grab the caramel? Got it. Look at that gorgeous. It's nice and cold. Did you taste it? No, not yet. Let's see. Oh, yummy. It's nice and salty. Kevin, get in there. So just go in there and do around a cup of caramel. Just pour it all over. All right. See how this goes. Kevin, on a scale of one to 10, how hard do you think this dessert is so far to make this dessert with 10 being the most difficult? This is about a two and a half to three. Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah. So here is the ganache, Kevin, that you made. Give that a little bit of a stir. We're just going to get the chocolate to come together. Which one of you minds putting over the chocolate? Do you want me to do it? You can do it. Yeah. I thought I'd ask first. And all we want is like a nice, even layer of chocolate. OK, perfect. So there is your gorgeous pie that you made. Kevin, what is the next step? Got to put it in the fridge. Put it in the fridge. So I know you guys are heading out the door to work. The pie is going to be in there for around five hours. So you have it for your dessert tonight. How do you feel that went? It went a lot better than I expected. I feel pretty confident in making that pie. I did all the hard work, I think, and I think it's going to turn out pretty nice. And I would not not feel too nervous cracking like one of your recipes and trying it out myself, honestly. Nice. What do you think, Jess? Yeah, I had a good amount of baking experience before, but I've never made a caramel before. So that was really exciting for me to finally check that one off. And yeah, I love seeing you be able to do it perfectly. And I'm excited to taste it. Well, you'll be very happy to know that Kevin is getting an early copy of my book. Oh my gosh. So he can make anything in there. Yes. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. So here's what I want you to do. Check in with me later. Send me an update and let me know how your tart is. All right. Will do. I want you to know. Hey Jemma. Hey Jemma. Just got done dinner. So you know what that means? It's time to try some dessert that we made. The tart. Wow. That's super good. It's really good. We made that. Wow. High five. Thanks Jemma. Thank you Jemma. 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. 20, right? 20.