Hello dear friends! A few people have asked me if I have left cyberspace and I have not. I have, however, been adjusting to a new work schedule and my modest little blog here has taken the brunt of my neglect. On top of that, my position as an assistant pastry chef has left me a little lazy to work on desserts at home. But, now that I'm a month in and a little more adjusted, I have renewed energy!
At work, I'm surrounded by and deal with tarts, tarts, and more tarts all day long. The star of the tart is the fruit you put on it. So before all the beautiful fruits start disappearing from the farmers markets and it starts getting brisk outside, I wanted to try baking these beautiful figs into a traditional french crust with frangipane filling. The figs were juicy and sweet. If you have underripe figs or get figs out of season (outside of summer), I recommend sprinkling a little sugar or brown sugar on top to bring out their sweetness before baking.
A secondary motive I wanted to use figs in this tart is because I recently scored the black slate you see in my pictures. The chefs in pastry school always used these black slates to display their desserts and I just think it looks so striking. The first thing I thought of when I saw the slate in the store was figs would look so good on top of that!! For my friends from school--Donc, voila--a fig tart.
