Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Tart

It's no secret that I love a good chocolate-peanut butter dessert! I've used this fabulous tasting combo in my chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies, chocolate peanut butter whoopie pies, devil's food cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, and—where this recipe is inspired from—my late Grammy's chocolate covered peanut butter eggs recipe!

The peanut butter filling that's in the eggs is very similar to what is in this chocolate peanut butter swirl tart recipe. It's very creamy, has a nice light and airy texture, and not overly sweet.

The melted chocolate used to cover the peanut butter eggs was swapped out for this recipe with a rich chocolate ganache layer and a cookie sandwich crust that uses Benton's Original Chocolate Sandwich Cookies from ALDI!

Why You'll Love this Recipe

• No oven needed
• Looks super fancy, but it is easy to make
• Uses nine ingredients you probably already have in your home
• Easily customizable from a 9 ½ inch tart pan to a 9-inch pie plate, 9-inch springform pan, or six mini tarts (4-inch in diameter)
• Tastes like chocolate peanut butter cups
• Light and creamy
• Rich and chocolatey
• Seriously indulgent, but not a heavy dessert
• The chocolate ganache layer is optional
• Switch up the hot fudge swirl for chocolate syrup or a border of crushed peanuts

If you're a huge fan of chocolate and peanut butter together, then you will definitely love this recipe!

How to Make the Recipe

Below is a brief summary of how to make this no-bake chocolate peanut butter tart recipe.

Make the chocolate cookie sandwich crust. You'll need a food processor for this part to process the cookies into fine crumbs. Use the entire cookie!

Add in the melted butter and pulse until the mixture forms. It should be soft, mushy, and easily shaped into the 9 ½-inch tart pan.

If you don't have a small food processor, you can place the cookies in a sealed plastic storage bag and break them up into fine crumbs using a rolling pin.

When shaping the cookie crust in the tart pan, I like to start with the sides; then, I fill in the bottom. Use the bottom of a measuring cup to smooth and level out the bottom and sides of the crust. You can also use any flat-bottomed object like a glass, or you can go with just a rubber spatula.

Place your prepared crust in either the refrigerator or freezer to chill.

Make the chocolate ganache. You'll need a small mixing bowl, a whisk, and a sheet of aluminum foil to make the chocolate ganache. If you have a glass mixing bowl, that's best in case you need to heat up the remaining chocolate morsels that may not fully melt.

You can heat up the heavy whipping cream either in a saucepan over medium heat or in the microwave in a microwaveable measuring glass.

It's best to wait 4-5 minutes before you begin to whisk the ganache together. When whisking, do so slowly to avoid getting air bubbles in the ganache.

Pour the chocolate ganache over the chilled chocolate cookie crust. I used an offset spatula to smooth out the chocolate ganache over the bottom of the cookie crust. I highly recommend placing this in the freezer while you prepare the peanut butter filling. It will set much faster this way.

Make the peanut butter filling. For this part of the recipe, it's good to use either your hand-held mixer or your stand mixer that has both the whisk and paddle attachments.

I made the whipped cream first using my hand-held mixer so it had time to chill in the refrigerator while I made the rest of the filling. Chilling a metal mixing bowl first is helpful when whipping cream, but it's not required.

It just may take a minute longer. See my Quick Tips Before Starting section below for easy substitutes!

It's important to have your cream cheese at room temperature to avoid any lumps in the peanut butter filling. For powdered sugar, sifting is best for the same reason—lumps. They will show up in the peanut butter mixture if not done.

Beat half the whipped cream with the cream cheese peanut butter mixture, then fold in the rest. You want the peanut butter filling to be uniform in color (no white streaks from the whipped cream) and light and creamy in texture.

Add the peanut butter filling to the tart. I used an offset spatula to smooth the filling out. Along with the chocolate ganache, I find parts of recipes like this very soothing.

Drizzle and swirl with hot fudge sauce. Once the peanut butter filling is smoothed out, you can drizzle over the top with hot fudge sauce. You only need a ¼ cup. If the hot fudge is refrigerated, it's helpful to warm it up in a microwaveable bowl. See my Quick Tips Before Starting section below for easy topping substitutes!

To make the swirls, gently use a knife, a palette knife, or a wooden skewer.

Chill for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight. Place it uncovered in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight. This gives the chocolate peanut butter tart time to set.

Alternatively, you can place it in the freezer for 1 - 1 ½ hours. Set it out on the counter at room temperature about 10 minutes before serving.

Variations

If you don't have a 9 ½ inch non-stick loose bottom tart pan readily available, you can also make this chocolate peanut butter swirl tart the following two ways:

No-bake chocolate peanut butter pie. Simply swap out the tart pan for a 9-inch pie plate or springform pan!

For the spring form pan, increase the number of chocolate sandwich cookies to 30 and add one extra tablespoon of melted butter. Having just a little extra cookie crust for the sides is helpful.

No-bake mini chocolate peanut butter swirl tarts (shown above). This recipe will make 6, 4-inch size mini tarts, and man, are they the cutest! They make great little surprise gifts for your chocolate-peanut butter dessert-loving friends!

When adding the peanut butter filling to the mini tarts, you can use a large pastry bag. No piping tip is needed. Just snip the bottom off when you're ready to pipe. Pipe on a good mound of the peanut butter filling, then smooth out with an angled spatula.

Helpful Tips

• The 2 hours, 30 minutes noted for this recipe includes 2 hours of minimum chill time after the tart has been assembled.
• It's not required to spray the tart pan with baking spray. If you would like to, do so lightly.
• For the peanut butter filling only, you can swap out the heavy whipping cream with 1 ½ - 2 cups from a tub or can of whipped dairy topping you might already have in your refrigerator. The method of how it's added to the peanut butter mixture is the same.
• Instead of using hot fudge, you can use chocolate syrup, a border of chopped peanuts, or skip adding a topping entirely.
• As an alternative to using your stovetop, you can heat the whipping cream in the microwave for 1 minute using a microwaveable measuring glass.
• For clean slices, run the knife under hot water and dry off with a kitchen towel after each cut.