Tasty Delights-- Cafe Mocha Chocolate Tort

Holy Tastebuds!! This was just delicious! I'm drooling just a little bit just thinking about it. Will definitely be making this one again! 

I really thought this would be difficult to make, certainly sounded fancy, but it was beyond easy. The hardest part was tracking down instant espresso power! It reminds me a lot of pecan pie which is one of my favorite desserts. I made two changes from the original recipe. 

First I made my own crust instead of using store bought. It's more personal preference than anything. I love homemade crust and it's pretty easy. I made my crust then baked for 10 minutes and cooled before continuing on with the recipe. The second thing I changed was the amount of espresso. I'm not huge on coffee flavors so reduced the amount from 3 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons thinking it would be too overpowering otherwise. Was perfect for my taste but I think I would have liked it just as much with the original amounts. Homemade whipped cream topped it off. Recipe 2 of the year was a huge success! 50 to go!

Cafe Mocha Tort 
(original recipe without my changes)

Pie crust

2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

3T instant espresso powder

1/2 cup corn syrup (light or dark)

1t vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts

3T unsalted butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

whipped cream

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Press pie crust into bottom and sides of a tort pan with removable bottom
• Sprinkle chocolate chips and walnuts evenly onto crust
• Microwave butter in large glass bowl, covered for 40 seconds
• Whisk espresso powder into melted butter
• Beat in brown sugar, corn syrup, eggs, vanilla into butter mix and then pour into pie crust
• Bake in lower 1/3rd of oven for 37-40 minutes
• Cool on rack before slicing