Fresh Fig Tart

When figs come into season, this is what to do with them. A crisp shell, cold pastry cream, and fruit that needs nothing done to it.

Serves 8
Chilling time: 2 hours total

Ingredients

For the pastry

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

For the pastry cream

1 1/4 cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 heaping tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

For the top

10 fresh figs
1 tablespoon honey

Method

Make the pastry

Work the cold butter into the flour, powdered sugar and salt with your fingertips until it looks like coarse crumbs. Cold butter is what makes the shell short and crisp — softened butter gives you something closer to a cookie.

Add the egg and vanilla and bring the dough together. Stop as soon as it holds. Overworked pastry shrinks in the oven.

Flatten into a disc, wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll the chilled dough out between two sheets of parchment.

Butter a tart tin and line it with the pastry, leaving a little overhang at the rim — it will shrink slightly as it bakes. Press it well into the corners.

Prick the base all over with a fork.

Blind bake

Line the shell with parchment and fill with baking beans or dried pulses.

Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.

Remove the beans and parchment and bake for another 10 minutes, until the base is dry and evenly golden.

Cool completely in the tin.

Make the pastry cream

Heat the milk in a pan until steaming.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale, then whisk in the cornstarch and salt.

Pour the hot milk into the yolks in a slow stream, whisking constantly.

Return the mixture to the pan and cook over medium heat, whisking without stopping, until it thickens and comes to a boil. Let it bubble for a full minute — this cooks out the starch and kills the enzyme in the yolks that would otherwise thin the cream back down as it sits.

Take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the cream, not across the top of the bowl. Contact is what stops a skin forming.

Chill for at least an hour.

Assemble

Whisk the cold pastry cream smooth — it stiffens in the fridge and needs loosening.

Spread it into the cooled tart shell.

Quarter the figs and arrange them from the center outward.

Warm the honey slightly and brush it over the fruit.

Serve within a few hours. The shell softens under the cream overnight, so this is not one to make a day ahead.