Maple syrup, olive oil, and beer up top, plus garlic, black pepper, fennel, and cayenne.

Using her sharpest knife, Amanda starts to score the skin of the pork shoulder.

Merill peels garlic while Amanda slices away.

One more beauty shot of the scored skin.

After a brief toasting, fennel seeds get crushed with a mortar and pestle.

No need to clean the mortar, just add the garlic on in!

It's always so cool to feel garlic becoming a paste under your hands when crushed with salt.

There it goes!

Amanda happily pours olive oil as Merrill keeps at it with the pestle.

The marinade gets finished off with cayenne, pepper, and the crushed fennel.

Now for the big moment: slathering the marinade all over the (skin-side down) shoulder.

Amanda spreads the marinade while Merrill empties the rest into a container along with maple syrup and malt vinegar.

Thirty minutes into its 18-hour cooking time, the roast is looking pret-ty good!

Slathered with the maple-fennel marinade, it looks even better.

Over the next several hours, we poured beer over the shoulder and basted it with its pan juices.

And all that work? It definitely pays off.

The lineup is simple enough: heavy cream, white and maple sugar, walnuts, egg whites, and soda crackers. Oh, and maple syrup!

Merrill uses her hands to separate egg whites into the Kitchenaid bowl.

Maple sugar adds an extra kick of flavor to the tart's shell.

When the whipped cream starts to get soft peaks, it's time to add the mixed sugars two tablespoons at a time.

Meanwhile, Amanda uses her beloved meat pounder to pulverize some innocent crackers.

Total (cracker) annihilation!

Merrill checks to see if the whipped cream's glossy peaks pass muster as Amanda studiously looks on.

Time to add in the maple syrup!

Already, the meringue looks good enough to eat.

Save your prettiest walnut halves for later on in this recipe -- the first batch just gets chopped.

It's time for the mix-ins, starting with the walnuts.

Cracker crumbs and baking powder join the party...

...then you fold it all in.

The tart pan gets buttered up until it shines.

No, that's not a pavlova, it's a tart crust!

Amanda expertly finishes the crust while Merrill cleans up a bit.

Just a half hour later, we pulled this beautifully golden-brown crackly shell out of the oven.

Now for the candied nuts! It only took a few minutes of simmering for these whole walnut halves to make friends with the maple syrup.

We poured them out on parchment paper to cool.

Amanda dons a kitchen-towel bib to whip cream by hand, slowly drizzling in maple syrup.

The finished cream gets poured into the refrigerated tart shell.

All it takes is a quick topping with those candied walnuts -- spread them evenly so everyone gets some!

And that's it.

We love a generous slice of pie.