I grew up in the Denver area, and Jeremy grew up mostly in the Boston area, so you can imagine that we were excited to see the Red Sox play the Colorado Rockies in the World Series this year. Since we were rooting for both teams, I decided to make Rockies- and Red Sox-related desserts for us to eat during the games. I started last night with a rocky road brownie tart, in hopes, I admit, of boosting the Rockies out of their slump. It didn’t quite work, as is now clear—at least they got several runs during the 5th inning while we were eating our slices of tart.

The tart, if you’ll pardon the obvious baseball pun, was a home run. I used a thawed disk of chocolate shortbread crust that was leftover from the August Daring Bakers Challenge. It resuscitated nicely, and saved me some time in the kitchen. The tart filling was basically just a loose brownie batter, made with organic Green and Black’s 72% dark baking chocolates supplemented with some semisweet chocolate chips. It was a little hard to tell when baking was done, even though the batter puffed up beautifully. The rounded top also made it difficult to keep the mini-marshmallows in place on top of it; I ended up having to place individual marshmallows around the edges to prevent them from rolling off willy-nilly. Finally, the broiler in my oven totally sucks: it took over 10 minutes to brown the marshmallows, and that is just pitiful. If your broiler actually works, it should only take a minute or two. Sorry, Rockies… there’s always next year.

Rocky Road Brownie Tart

1/3 recipe of chocolate shortbread crust (recipe here)
1/2 C unsalted butter, cut into chunks
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 C sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 C all purpose flour
1/2 C chopped walnuts, toasted, plus more for topping
Mini-marshmallows

Preheat oven to 325F. Press or pat crust into a 10″ tart pan; dock with a fork. Cover with parchment and fill with pie weights or beans. Blind bake for 15 minutes and allow to cool while making the filling.

Stir butter and chocolates in medium saucepan over low heat until melted; cool slightly. Beat sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt in medium bowl until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Whisk in chocolate mixture, then mix in flour and nuts. Pour batter into crust. Bake until filling puffs around edges and tester inserted into center comes out with very moist crumbs attached, about 35 minutes.

Top tart with a single layer of mini-marshmallows and sprinkle with walnuts. Return to oven and broil for several minutes, until marshmallows are puffed and golden brown. (Watch carefully to make sure they don’t burn.) Transfer to rack and cool completely, or as long as you can stand to wait.

Sources: Adapted from the Daring Bakers August 2007 Challenge, and Epicurious.