This is it – one recipe left from Baked Explorations. I’ve made all 75 recipes, thanks to Baked Sunday Mornings. It took two and a half years, and it was a delicious, fun journey.

My favorite recipes from the book are the Sweet & Salty Brownies, the Monkey Bread, and the shortbread. But really, there were very few recipes that I didn’t like, and I definitely learned a lot and became a better baker along the way.

This is the first of two Mississippi Mud Pie recipes in the book – we made the (B) version first, in July of last year. That version is more of a cake. This one is a straight-up ice cream pie.

Funny thing about the chocolate crust, which is just crushed up chocolate wafer cookies and butter. I learned the hard way once after buying an off-brand chocolate wafer cookie that the only acceptable cookie for this crust is a Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. Except I couldn’t find them. Anywhere. I checked a handful of different grocery stores, and they were nowhere to be found.

I was formulating Plan B in my head – either Oreos with the filling removed, or homemade chocolate wafers, when I decided to check near the ice cream freezer at Safeway… near the ice cream toppings. And voila, there were my cookies. I don’t know why they are there. It’s a stupid place for them. But I’m glad I got them.

I had planned on using a really good coffee ice cream in the filling. So I made it myself – using freshly roasted Sightglass coffee. I don’t usually like coffee ice cream, but dang, it’s really good. I went outside the book for the ice cream, using a Jeni’s recipe that I’d been wanting to try.

The rest of the tart is really pretty simple. There’s a fudge-y layer of chocolate between the crust and the ice cream, which is topped with toasted pecans and another layer of fudge-y chocolate. It’s a rich, sweet, delicious mess of a dessert and we loved it.

To get the recipe and see the other entries from this week’s Baked Sunday Mornings head on over to Baked Sunday Mornings. The coffee ice cream recipe is posted at Leite’s Culinaria.

• Mississippi Mud Pie (A), a.k.a. Coffee Ice Cream Tart (Baked Explorations, p. 69)
• Black Coffee Ice Cream (Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, p. 162)