Around Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie reign supreme along with pecan pie too. Perhaps this is the year to make a new tradition: bake a fig tart recipe for your next occasion.
Make the Fig Tart Crust
Rather than roll out an all-butter crust, a tart crust uses pate sucre, meant to be pressed into a tart shell. So, after you mix the pate sucre, you transfer it to a tart shell and begin pressing it out so that the pastry is evenly spread. You’ll chill the dough for 30 minutes before blind-baking the tart crust. A tart crust also ensures a pretty scalloped edge, so no need for crimping or shaping the crust edge.
Golden or Mission: Pick Your Fig
Figs are a flavor of fall with Mission Figs being the more familiar of the bunch: deeply fruity and sweet as well as being dark in color. Golden Figs, on the other hand, offer more of a slightly nutty and delicately sweet flavor with an amber hue
Pick a Fig Tart to Bake
— SWEET —
Walnut Fig Tart is the showstopper dessert for your Thanksgiving table. It builds on the idea of pecan pie but includes walnuts and dried figs instead. So, a buttery crust with figs and nuts baked in. Top it with a dollop of vanilla freshly whipped cream.
Poached Pear Fig Almond Frangipane Tart would be a delightful addition to a Thanksgiving dessert table. Pears poach in white wine, lemon, vanilla bean, and peppercorns. They than get sliced to tile over a filling of almond frangipane and chopped figs. You’ll love the fall flavors in this one!
Vanilla Bean Yogurt Tart with Spiced Fig Compote pairs a tangy filling of Greek yogurt scented with vanilla bean to bake inside a chocolate crust. Serve with fig compote that mixes Mission and Golden Figs together, mixed with citrus and vanilla. Alice Medrich created this tart especially good in summer.
Cocoa Fig Jam Tarts fill baked tart crusts with a chocolatey mission fig jam filling. This recipe in particular bakes them into individual tartlets. If you make it for Thanksgiving, consider adding a dollop of pumpkin spiced freshly whipped cream or vanilla whipped cream on top.
Chocolate Espresso Tart with Figs gets its rich chocolate flavor not just from the bittersweet chocolate but also from instant espresso. Then, the “whipped cream” is made in a method popularized by Dalgona coffee where espresso gets whipped with sugar and water before being piped onto the tart.
Chocolate Almond Fig Tart rides the line between a PB+J and a dressy dessert. Created by The Cozy Plum, chocolate graham crackers or chocolate cookies get used to make the crust. Creamy almond butter gets spread over the crust with fig preserves above, then chilled with a whipped cream topping.
Chocolate Ganache Tart with Glazed Figs is almost too pretty to eat. Toasted nuts and halved dried figs top a thick layer of rich chocolate ganache. After you bake and cool the crust, the ganache goes on and then you press on the nuts and figs. That’s it. The tart sets up while it chills in the refrigerator.
— SAVORY —
Red Wine Poached Fig & Goat’s Cheese Tart doesn’t use a tart sucre, but instead frozen puff pastry, thawed according to packaging directions. Each fig tart recipe showcases desserts, this one squarely falls into appetizer territory or in the realm of “snacking dinners.” It pairs beautifully with red wine.
