Itty Bitty Chocolate Smore Tarts

I promised to report all about the National Cornbread Cook off in Tenessee-and I will, I will! But today is Tuesday, and on Tuesdays all prior plans must cease in order to observe the assignment of my weekly baking club, TWD. This week we've made chocolate cream tarts, but please, oh please, do not make them the way that I did. Click here and find someone else who wasn't in Tennesee all week and came home to expired cream. Find someone who is organized and bright, calm and systematic. Otherwise, they might spoil a perfectly delicious chocolate cream filling. Which is exactly what I did.

Things didn't start out so bad. I came home from my trip, having missed a night of sleep from traveling, so didn't get up in time for my treadmill run, which means no shower till I get the run in, and started school late with the charges. While charge number one was writing an essay about the fall of the Berlin Wall and charge number two was pounding out "When the Saints Go Marching In" on the piano, I started making a half batch of the chocolate cream filling. It was astoundingly good, even amidst the chaos. Pencils and pianos were cast aside so we could gather round and eat the warm chocolate filling. It was looking promising. But then I got sloppy. Too lazy to make a pie crust, I turned to a wholewheat crust I had in the freezer. I regularly use whole wheat crusts as you dear readers are aware, but NOT. ON. CREAM. PIES.

Please don't try. It tastes evil. But it was too late since all of the little hearty wheat shells were filled with dreamy chocolate before I realized. I hoped the whipped cream topping would perk them up. But then, I found my cream was expired. Not just a little bit either. Apparently, it had secured a safe hiding place behind the pickle jar since February. I wasn't about to run to the market in the current state of my kitchen, my day, my life, and by gosh-my hair! so I threw on some marshmallows and just about burnt them under the broiler while I busied myself teaching three digit divisions with zeros. Darn-I just wasted a good chunk of time and messed up the kitchen to boot. But about 9:30 PM, the Quiet Man and the charges used baby spoons (so glad I saved a few) and ate the marshmallows and cream filling from the shells. And me? I finally cleaned the kitchen, got on the treadmill and squeezed in that shower. I suppose things turned out OK, after all. Next time I'm making that pie, it'll be the right way, I hope. On the other hand, maybe I've been inspired. Next Tuesday, I just might turn our tiramisu assignment into a smore's tiramisu. Sounds promising.

I'll be back with a full report on the National Cornbread Festival in Tennesee plus my "Honorable Mention" Recipe.