As many of you know I am a fiercely competitive potlucker.  No matter what the occasion, I always bring out the big guns to try and woo everyone at the meal.  Normally, I bring my double tomato bruschetta, which is always, (I mean ALWAYS) is a crowd pleaser. But when my friend Victor offered to host a potluck, I decided to break from my traditional roots and make something new.

Now, I always have recipes that I want to try. Typically as I browse though my favourite food blogs, I find recipes that I save for a rainy day.  For the most part these recipes end up in a giant bookmark folder and are promptly forgotten about.  This was not the case for this recipe.  As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to have it and that it woulld be the perfect dessert to bring to the party.  As an added bonus this pie/tart, uses some of my favourite ingredients: cream cheese, chocolate and berries.

While the original recipe calls for the baker to make their own tart shell, I cheated and used a frozen store bought one that was hiding in my freezer.  I recommend checking out the original recipe sourced below for the instructions on how to make the actual tart base.  By skipping the tart manufacturing phase I was able to cut down the amount of time this recipe took.  Over all it took me last than an hour to make and was a huge hit! Definitely a great summer treat and good for any occasion (or lack thereof).

Recipe Below:

• 1 pre-made pie shell

For the chocolate Ganache:

• 2 squares of bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup of heavy cream
• 1 T unsalted butter, room temperature

For the Cream Cheese Layer

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 2 T cream

Topping

• 1 basket of fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced thinly
• melted chocolate, for drizzling

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a heat proof bowl
2. Bring the cream to a slight boil in a pot then remove from heat
3. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let stand for a few moments
4. Begin to whisk the chocolate/cream mixture until the chocolate is full melted
5. Whisk in butter into chocolate mixture
6. Pour ganache into pie shell and spread evenly.
7. Put shell into the fridge and allow the ganache to set
8. In a new bowl, cream the cream cheese and sugar until smooth
9. Add the vanilla and cream and mix until incorporated
10. Remove pie shell from fridge and pour cream cheese mixture over the chocolate ganache layer and spread evenly.
11. Take sliced strawberries and lay them in a circular patter from the outside in
12. Drizzle melted chocolate over the finished pie.
13. Refrigerate until you reveal the pie to tremendous applause.

Recipe Adapted from Annie’s Eats