Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets

These chocolate peanut butter tartlets are just the latest way I’ve found to combine chocolate and peanut butter.

My love affair with that combination is longstanding. As a kid, I gobbled up Reese’s peanut butter cups, mostly on the sly. In college, I often ate peanut butter on bread or graham crackers – chocolate chips strewn over the top and lightly pressed in to keep them on the “peanut butter delivery vehicle.”

More recently, I developed single serving no-bake chocolate peanut butter desserts. That frolic and detour began with leftover cocoa puffs and moved onto full blown dessert craziness. (The story involves a well-known French chef who specified them in a recipe – worth reading especially if you hold to the stereotype of French chefs as snooty people who spurn American prepared foods.) 

The recipe for chocolate peanut butter tartlets was inspired by leftover chocolate animal crackers. When our cousins Tara and Rick came to visit with their two adorable daughters, Tara unpacked her bag of treats from their car ride. She asked that I hide the cookies from the girls as we were making dinner; I did and then forgot to retrieve them when Tara and Rick packed up to go home.

I couldn’t just eat the animal crackers. That would be too easy. I had to find a way to use them in a simple, but knock-your-socks-off dessert. When I joined #Choctoberfest, it came to me as if in a vision – drumroll, please.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets

I’ve hopped on the no-bake, single serving dessert train once again, but this time with delicate sweets in removable tart pans. You can buy these pans in a kitchen store or just use small ramekins and serve the dessert in the container. Either way, the chocolaty bottom and the peanut butter filling will have you smacking your lips.

I used extra dark Lindt chocolate and a bit of the peanut butter filling to add fun decorations on the top of the tart. That part is optional, but so much fun that you’ll want to do it if you have even tiny bit of “arts & craftiness” in your personality. In my next life, I’ll go to pastry school, but for now, I settle for imprecise lettering and not-quite-straight rosettes that taste fine even if they look as bit askew. 

Speaking of Lindt, that company is one of the sponsors of #Choctoberfest. (I didn’t get my chocolate from the company, but I’m very grateful to Lindt and the other sponsors.) There is still one day left to enter the giveaway to win prizes that include chocolate and lots of other great stuff. If you haven’t already, enter at the bottom of my earlier #Choctoberfest post.

The ingredients are simple and the only part that requires baking is the crust, which can be done in a toaster oven if you don’t want to turn on the regular oven for such a small job. 

Print Recipe

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets Yum

These tartlets are no-bake (except for the crust, which can be done in the toaster oven) and simple to pull together in just minutes.

Prep Time

15 minutes

Cook Time

8 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup chocolate graham cracker or cookie crumbs finely ground
• 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
• 3 ounces cream cheese softened at room temperature
• 1/2 + 2 tablespoons cup creamy peanut butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ounce bittersweet or extra dark chocolate melted (optional)

Prep Time 15 minutes Cook Time 8 minutes Servings Ingredients 1 cup chocolate graham cracker or cookie crumbs finely ground 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted 3 ounces cream cheese softened at room temperature 1/2 + 2 tablespoons cup creamy peanut butter at room temperature 1/2 cup ricotta cheese 1/4 cup confectioners sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 ounce bittersweet or extra dark chocolate melted (optional)

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the toaster or regular oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Mix the chocolate graham cracker or cookie crumbs and the melted butter in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Put 1/4 cup of the mixture into each of the four tartlet pans (or ramekins or small bowls.) Press it down firmly against the bottom and sides of each pan. Bake them on a cookie sheet for 8 minutes, then cool the shells to room temperature. If the bottoms have puffed up or the sides have shrunk down a bit during the baking, press them back into shape.
3. Combine the cream cheese, peanut butter, ricotta cheese, confectioners sugar and vanilla and mix thoroughly. You can use a food processor or do it by hand.
4. If you want to make chocolate decorations on top, mix the melted bittersweet or extra dark chocolate with three tablespoons of the peanut filling and put it in a pastry bag with a tip or a plastic sandwich bag and cut off just about 1/8-1/4 inch of the bag corner.
5. Once the crust has cooled in the tartlet shells, scoop the filling mixture into the tartlet pans, smooth it out and, if you are going to decorate with chocolate/peanut butter mixture, do so. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour.

Recipe Notes

If you use tartlet pans like mine, you can press down the cookie crust with the back of a teaspoon initially, but you'll have to use your fingers to press it against the sides. For small ramekins, the teaspoon will work on the sides.
My tartlet shells are about 3 1/4 inches wide on the bottom and the sides are 3/4 inches tall. the filling with three tablespoons removed for the decorations just filled them to the tops.
To remove the tartlets from the pans, slip a knife around the sides before lifting the bottom (still containing the tartlet) and letting the ring slide off. Then slide the knife between the tartlet bottom and the crust before slipping the bottom off the crust.

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