Orange-Cranberry Dark Chocolate Heart Tart

I am a huge fan of multi-tasking, and this recipe proves it! I’ll be bringing this tart to the Valentine’s lunch at work tomorrow, entering it into Mara’s BSI: Oranges contest, and entering it into the Quaker True Delights: Be Delighted recipe contest that Foodbuzz is hosting. I loosely based my tart on this Chocolate-Cranberry Tart from Weight Watchers, but I made some pretty significant changes. Mara and Foodbuzz, you can be the judges of whether my changes are significant enough!

Ingredients

– 12 oz. bag of cranberries, rinsed

– 1/4 cup water

– 3 oat-based granola bars, crumbled (I used one of each flavor of the True Delights bars)

– 1/3 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats

– 1 Tbsp whole wheat flour

– 2 tsp canola oil

– 1 tsp salted butter

– 1 tsp vanilla, divided

– 3 oz. unsweetened Baker’s chocolate, melted

– 3 oz. Lindt hazelnut milk chocolate, melted (or other sweetened chocolate of your choosing)

– 2 Tbsp milk (I used unsweetened Silk)

– 1/4 tsp table salt

– 2 Tbsp turbinado sugar, divided (I use Sugar in the Raw)

– 2 oranges, peeled and separated into their natural sections

– Optional: more melted chocolate and milk for drizzling over the top

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Coat 9-inch pie tin with cooking spray. (I used a tin so I could cut it for easy removal later, but you could use a regular pie plate if you like.) I wanted to be able to do a taste test before letting my entire office eat this, so I also used a mini-tin to make myself a single serving of tart to try.

3. Combine cranberries and water in a small saucepan. Cover loosely and cook over medium heat until cranberries start to pop. Remove from heat and let cool.

4. In a medium bowl, combine oats, crumbled granola bars (I heated these a little to make them more crumbly), flour, canola oil, butter, and 1/2 tsp vanilla.

5. Press oat mixture into the bottom of pie plate. Mixture will be crumbly — don’t worry.

6. Combine melted chocolates, milk, and salt. Smooth chocolate over the oat mixture in the pie plate. I used clean, wet fingers to do this. If the chocolate start to get hard or too sticky, put the plate in the oven for a few minutes to make it easy to spread again

7. Sprinkle 1 tbsp sugar over the chocolate.

7. Bake for 25 minutes until chocolate is firm.

8. In the meantime, use a knife to slit the outer membranes of your orange slices, and gently but firmly separate the pulp from the membranes. Try not to squeeze all the juice out in the process. Save the pulp in a bowl (and eat the membranes as you go, if you like :-)).

9. After 25 minutes, remove the pie plate from the oven. Use a wooden spoon to press the chocolate down onto the oat crust some more to make sure that everything is stuck together sufficiently.

10. Arrange the popped and cooled cranberries over the top of the tart in a heart shape (or any arrangement that you like). Surround the cranberries with orange pulp.

11. Sprinkle another tbsp of sugar over the top of the fruit and broil for about 3 minutes. Keep checking to make sure that nothing is burning!

12. Allow tart to cool completely in tin on a wire rack.

13. If you like, melt optional additional chocolate and thin with milk. Use a fork to drizzle over the top of the tart. (My drizzling was very messy and ruined the heart effect, so I went over the heart with another layer of cranberries post-drizzle.)

Mmmmm:

This dessert is so good, it should probably be illegal. I devoured my mini-tart in seconds.