Here is a great holiday pie recipe that takes only minutes to make, although it does take several hours to chill. Warm it back to room temperature when you serve it, to make cutting caramel easier, and use a warm knife.

Depending on whether you make this in a tart pan or a pie pan, this is a tart or quiche, but is simple and delicious. And, for holidays, it is easily transportable. Save the Maldon salt until just before serving so it doesn’t dissolve in the ganache.

Crust

• 3 cups crushed chocolate cookies
• 4 Tb unsalted butter

1. Crush the cookies in a food processor. Lacking simple chocolate cookies, we tried chocolate biscotti, chocolate chocolate chips cookies and thin Oreos with the filling scraped off. All worked well.
2. Melt the unsalted butter in a microwave for 1 minute at 50% power and mix in with the cookies.
3. Press the crumbs into the bottom of a pie pan or tart pan.
4. Bake 10-15 minutes at 350˚ F, until fragrant.
5. Cool or chill until ready to fill the pie.

Caramel filling

• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/3 cup water
• 6 Tb chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt

1. Mix the sugar and cream of tartar and add the water.
2. Bring the sugar mixture to a boil, with stirring to dissolve the sugar.
3. Reduce heat to medium and let the sugar solution cook slowly (8-10 minutes) with swirling until it is deep amber, and wisps of smoke start to come from the pan.
4. Remove from heat and add the butter, carefully, a piece at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon, to avoid foaming up.
5. Add the cream slowly with stirring.
6. Add the salt.
7. Pour into a glass pitcher to allow it to cool
8. Pour into the piecrust, cover with foil and refrigerate, an hour or overnight.

Ganache

• 4 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 Tb honey
• ¼ tsp coarse salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Flakey sea salt

1. Place the chocolate in a heat proof bowl
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, honey and salt.
3. Bring the cream to a boil and pour over the chocolate.
4. Let stand 5 minutes, to melt the chocolate.
5. Whisk until smooth
6. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until stiff, usually a couple of hours, (depending on how many cocktails you drink in the meantime.)
7. Spread the ganache on the chilled filling.
8. At the last minute, sprinkle with Maldon or other sea salt.

Serve pie at room temperature.

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