Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Tart

I love a recipe that makes you look like you're a star in the kitchen but doesn't require that much expertise from you.  This tart is such a recipe.  Tarts always look fancy, assuming that you can get the tart out of the pan without ruining it.  If that happens, it no longer looks fancy.

When searching amazon.com for hazelnut paste, I passed right by this brand at first because of the 'n in its brand name.  I hate 'n' words, like Shake 'n' Bake (which is objectionable for other reasons).  Is it really that hard to say and?  And this one is even worse because it only has one apostrophe.  Love'n Bake.  What does that mean?  Lovein Bake?  Love an Bake?  But then I saw that it was made by the brand that Rose recommends:  American Almond.  So I put aside my apostrophe grumpiness and ordered the Love'n Bake.  (I won't even get started on how much I dislike hearts used as fake punctuation marks.)

The American Almond hazelnut paste was perfectly fine.  The tart dough was a little sticky, but a sprinkle of flour and some plastic wrap kept it under control.  The flat-bottomed measuring cup works much better than my fingers at flattening the crust.

Too bad I didn't get a picture of the crust when it came out of the oven.  Rose warns you that the crust puffs up, but I didn't envision how puffy it would get.  It puffed up so that the bottom was nearly even with the top, looking like a giant puffy cookie.  It pressed right back down, though, so it was nothing to worry about.

Then the hazelnut mousse.  Really easy.  Just whip everything together ("everything" being hazelnut paste, cream cheese, egg, and vanilla), and then fold in some whipped cream.  When I looked at the recipe, I saw that it had 3/4 cup of cream in one place and 1/4 of cream in another.  One cup, I said to myself, using one of my usual lightning-fast math calculations.  That means I only need a cup of cream.  Oops.  I missed the "plus two tablespoons" part, so I was two tablespoons short.  I don't think it made a big difference.

And then the ganache.  Since it was such a small amount, I decided I wasn't going to grate the chocolate, so I just broke up the pieces and melted it in hot cream.  I think there should be a National Ganache Day, both because it's fun to say and because we should all pause and be thankful for the person who figured out that melting chocolate in cream gives you a rich, delicious, icing.  I didn't add the Fra Angelico, but that would have been lovely.

I took it to my daughter's house for dinner.  She eyed it suspiciously, and asked for a small piece.  She took a bite and said, "I'll have more."  Music to my ears.