Impromptu Friday night dessert for two

It's Friday!  We're having another at-home date night tonight.  I'm taking it easy; my husband will bring home the take-out dinner and I've put together this relatively spontaneous little chocolate tart for dessert.  Inspiration is everywhere but in this case, the idea to throw this together came from a magazine...

Mini Chocolate Ganache Tart: digestive biscuit crust and ganache flavored with Grand Marnier

One of the things I love to do is go off to the bookstore early in the morning when there's barely anyone there.  I order an icy frappucino, something to eat, and sit for a while thumbing through magazines.  What a luxury!  I was indulging in this way a few days ago and looking through the latest issue of Donna Hay magazine.  Do you know Donna Hay?  I think her magazines are works of art - the food looks beautiful but sounds relatively uncomplicated and approachable.  Amidst all the beautiful food in the latest issue was a chocolate tart, strikingly topped with chocolate dipped pretzels.  The crust is what caught my attention.  It was made with digestive biscuits and pretzels, and that's what gave me the idea for this impromptu dessert on this Friday night.

You see...I have a tube of digestive biscuits that my mother in law gave us sitting in the pantry.  Since my house doesn't really lack for desserts, I doubt we'll ever get to those biscuits properly.  So when I read the ingredient list for Donna Hay's chocolate tart, I bypassed the pretzels but thought: "why not use up a few of those digestive biscuits for a tart crust?" and fill it with a simple chocolate ganache.

To me, the contrast between the grainy, whole wheat flavor and texture of the digestive biscuits against rich chocolate ganache filling sounded like a good match.  And to make things a bit more interesting, I added a dash of Grand Marnier (my husband likes Grand Marnier but you could use Amaretto, Kahlua, or another kind of liqueur) to the ganache to spike up the flavor a little bit further.  You could skip the liqueur and substitute a small dash of vanilla extract instead.

Since it's date night and we're baking a bit on the fly today, it's just a wee mini tart for two.  I happen to have one random, roughly 4 1/2-inch, mini tart pan with a removable bottom that I put to use here.

I am ready to start the weekend and enjoy the lull before the storm - literally!  Unfortunately, there's talk of a major storm/hurricane coming our way on the East Coast.  I'm hoping it will be a whole lot less serious than what the weather reports are predicting right now.  I certainly do not want any repeat of what happened last year right around Halloween.  Let's think positive thoughts and above all else, be safe!