Croatian Fresh Fig, Honey & Mascarpone Tart
Don’t know about you, but I love fresh figs so always excited to see them in the shops.
Any chance I get to eat or cook with them and I’m quick to do both.
This Croatian Fresh Fig, Honey & Mascarpone Tart is a very pretty tart to look at and as with a lot of Croatian sweet dishes, very easy to make using very few ingredients.
With only two ingredients for the filling, if not including the figs, mascarpone and runny honey make a wonderful mouth feel without making the filling sickly sweet.
Honey can have very little flavour or in the case of honeys such as heather honey, filled with tones that can sometimes become overwhelming.
Moral of this honey story is, be careful which honey you choose to use when making this tart.
I’ve tried this recipe with a few different honeys – lavender honey, heather honey and just good old supermarket runny honey.
The one that works best for me, the one which has more of a flavour of honey rather than the surrounding flowers or foliage is the plain runny honey.
I prefer to have a subtle sweetness rather than the overpowering
So, for me, ‘plain’ old runny honey is better, more subtle and gives the mascarpone a chance to bring its own flavour to the party and let the figs swim around in the filling bringing their own characteristics to my mouth!
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life!
Bake until a little bit golden around the edges
What You Need
Pastry
200g Plain Flour- Extra flour for dusting the tin
100g Salted Butter – Softened and cut into cubes
50g Castor Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
Margarine for lining the tin
i make my life easier by placing the tin on to a tray
Filling
500g Mascarpone
6 Tbsp Runny Honey
6 Large Fresh Figs
Place the figs cuts side up on the tart filling
How It’s Done
Pastry
Place the flour and butter into a bowl and use a butter knife, pastry cutter or finger tips to gently mix the two together until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the castor sugar and mix it into the pastry breadcrumbs
Add the egg yolk to the pastry and bring the pastry together to form a dough ball.
Wrap the pastry in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Set the oven to 180 c
Cover the inside of 26cm loose bottom tart tin with margarine or butter
Dust the inside of the tin with flour
Cut out a circle of non-stick baking parchment the size of the bottom of the tin and lay it inside the floured tin.
After the pastry has cooled and set up, remove it from the fridge and throw some flour onto the work-surface.
Roll out the pastry and lay it out gently in the prepared tin – See Tip Box
Place some foil into the tin and then pour some pastry beads or rice on top of the foil and place it in the oven to bake blind. Let it bake for10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, remove it from the oven, remove the beads and foil and replace it in the oven for a further 3 minutes to bake.
Place the mascarpone and the honey into a saucepan.
Gently heat the mascarpone and honey until it becomes liquid – Only a few minutes
Pour the liquid mascarpone and honey into the pastry case
Cut a very thin layer off the top and bottom of the fresh figs
Cut the figs into four and lay them on top of the tart filling – cut side up
Place the tart into the hot oven to cook for 30 minutes, turning half way through cooking for an even bake. – See Tip Box
Once cooked, let the tart cool completely before taking out of the tin and serving.
A layer of crisp pastry in the bottom and a layer of creamy filling in the middle
Tip Box
Pastry – The pastry is quite soft when it’s rolled out, so if it splits when laying it in the tin, don’t worry. Just piece it together with other bits.
Make sure that there are not holes in the pastry before blind baking it.
Cooking – 1) Each oven is different so adjust the cooking times accordingly.
2) Cook the tart until it becomes golden in places and still has a jiggle in the middle
Crisp, creamy and ready to cut into
