On Playing with Figs, Silicone, and Knives… A Lot
Yesterday, after buying some extraordinary figs from my local Trader Joe’s, I decided to prep the Fig-Cornmeal Tart in Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course so that I could assemble it today. It’s composed of a cornmeal crust flavored with vanilla and orange zest that’s filled with a jam made of simmered green figs, armagnac, OJ, orange zest, nutmeg, vanilla, sugar, and butter. Quartered figs are laid on top, and she suggests serving it with whipped creme fraiche and drizzled honey.
It was good that I made the jam last night — the flavors needed time to meld together for an almost floral/vanilla essence imbued into the fig flavor — whereas last night, each flavor could be tasted separately.
And rolling out the dough gave me the chance to try one of my newest culinary toys — a silicone rolling pin.
Since the silicone pin doesn’t require flour to work, you have to use a silicone surface (like a silpat), too, or else the purpose is half-defeated. I was surprised by how well it worked. As long as the dough is just a bit chilled, it won’t stick to the pin. And it’s so clean. For someone who’s spent half of the last nine months dealing with messy floured tables, it was like… magic. And since no extra flour is added, there’s less chance that the dough will turn out tough or starch-y. You usually have to pick up the dough to make sure that it’s not sticking to the surface on the bottom as you’re rolling it out, but you don’t have to do that either. You can just turn about the silpat itself to make sure that you’re rolling it evenly. You can just peel to release it, though chilling it for a little while helps a bit to make removal more foolproof. And clean up means just a quick rinse.
So, I baked off some tart shells, filled them with jam when cool, and set about arranging figs on them. I knew it would be a challenge because I noticed that the picture in the book is shot so that the jam can’t be seen under the figs or behind the crust, which must have been on purpose, because green fig jam looks gelatinously unappetizing. But the tart in the photo also has an unreasonable number of sliced figs on top to cover the jam — who could eat so many pieces of figs on top of a jam-filled tart? And I didn’t want to add whipped cream just yet. So, I started experimenting…
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No matter how the figs were arranged on the tart, they all looked a little too… gelatinous. The squishy figs atop the large bed of chunky fig jam. Too much fig on too much fig action.
I decided to change the size so that each would be 1-2 bite serving, like a cookie… like how fig newtons are. I had some leftover dough, so I rolled it out slightly thicker than for a tart, and began baking it as a slab. When set, I cut out rounds with a cookie cutter so that the sides would be clean for cookies, and finished baking them. I also pureed half of the fig jam in a food processor; the original instructions had said to “dice” the figs, but the chunks of skin were too much for little cookies.
I also thought about the epiphany I’d had during plated desserts when a chef had simply cut a fruit a new way to make it look so much better.
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These were better proportion-wise, but after eating so many scraps, I thought about what I could add to cut the jelly-jammy texture a little and contribute a contrasting flavor. I tried sprinkling pomegranate pips, which looked great, but only added more seeds to deal with. I tried wrapping a fig in shaved cantaloupe, but that tasted worse than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams, but then again, that cantaloupe didn’t taste too good to begin with.
Ultimately, toasted walnuts and whipped cream seemed like the best additions, but adding the whipped cream seemed a little tricky, so I started off with the walnuts.
I liked the way that the walnuts went with the fig, subtly lending flavor and texture. For the tart on the right, I cut a fig into one spiral and pulled it apart; on the left, they’re just chopped.
Then I played with my melon baller. The scooped out insides of a fig may look like brains, but once I had a hollow cavity in a fig, it seemed like the perfect vessel for the chunky fig jam and a walnut.
But it still needed something to lighten it up, so I went in for some whipped cream (unsweetened).
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Ultimately, I didn’t really like the crust with the whipped cream, but I loved the combination of the fig, chunky fig jam, walnut, and whipped cream. It was like a juicy fig cream puff in a natural tart shell, but even better because it had that added kick from the armagnac, orange, and vanilla.
