Road Trip Recipe

It's fall!  We just wrapped up our first (annual?) West Coast Road Tour, serving 5 meals in 5 cities and a total of 70 guests.  One of these guests wrote an awesome blog post about her experience in Portland here, if you'd like to check it out!  She also complimented the dessert I served, a fig and frangipane tart, to which I supplied the recipe.  I love it when I can give someone a recipe, and hope they make it!  Since I took the time to write it down, I thought I should share it here, too, and hope she doesn't mind that I borrowed a photo of the dessert course. 

Here is the recipe, and please share your experience!  If I messed it up in the transcription, please let me know.  It's a combination of a few recipes, from Ina Garten and Sweet Cakes Bakery in Chicago. This calls for figs, but any other yummy fruit works, I’ve used stone fruit, berries, etc.  Just scatter or arrange evenly before baking.

Frangipane Tart with Fig

Toasty Nut Crust (makes two, I like to freeze one portion for another time, it's also criminally versatile and doesn't require any rolling or resting):
3/4 cup toasted nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans..etc), chopped coarse
3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
2 Cups AP flour
12 tablespoons cold butter (1 1/2 sticks), diced
1 egg yolk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine the flour, nuts, and sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and the egg yolk. Mix, either by hand or with an electric mixer, until crumbly.
Freeze half for later in a container or ziplock bag if only making one tart. Press the rest into a tart pan with a removeable bottom. Top with filling:

Frangipane Filling:
2 tablespoons sugar
4 ounces (one stick) butter
8 ounces almond paste (not marzipan; this product has less sugar)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons flour (cake is best, but all-purpose will do)
Cream butter and sugar in a mixer, as if for cake.
Break up almond paste into 1-inch chunks and add to butter and sugar, mixing until not quite fully incorporated (a few BB-sized bits are OK).
Add eggs one at a time.
Add flour all at once and continue mixing until just incorporated. It should be very soft and spreadable, like the creamed butter and sugar. Store in the fridge or freezer, where it will last for weeks.

Topping:
Then top with fruit (10 or so halved or quartered figs, a pint of berries, one or two sliced stone fruits) and bake until puffed and golden around the fruit, about 20-30 minutes depending on your oven. Rotate the pan once or twice to ensure even browning. You can also bake it without fruit and top the cooled tart with chocolate ganache and (gasp!) flaky sea salt.


Happy baking!

Logan