Fig Tarte Tatin

There is something magical about figs and before the season is over I wanted to exploit them in a dish I will remember forever. I love tarte tatin's but I have never made one myself before, so with the figs in hand and half a puff pastry block (leftovers from my sausage rolls) I decide on trying my first tarte tatin with figs. 

And you know what, tarte tatin's aren't as difficult as I imagined them to be! The hardest part what trying to find something round and large enough to use as a template to cut my pastry so it would fit over my pan. In the end, I used the frying pan lid but this ended up being a little bit too small. Some of the figs ended up falling off the tarte because of this.

Perhaps the biggest inspiration for this dish was the honey liquor I bought from Lourensford in South Africa. It has been sitting in my cupboard for a while, waiting to be used in the perfect dessert and now I found a reason to use it. 

For full flavour, I macerated my chopped figs in about a shot or two of the honey liquor to bring out even more flavour from the figs and to soften them a bit. You don't need honey liquor to do this, any flavoured liquor would work, but make sure you add sugar, and extra honey later on in the dish. The main flavours for tarte end up being the sweet figs, honey and vanilla all oozing with butter, it is heavenly. 

My only sadness is that I didn't have any cream based topping to sit over the top. I would recommend a big fat dollop of double cream or vanilla ice cream to go with it. 

 Ingredients
4 fresh Figs, cut into 1/6's
2 shots of Honey liquor
1 tbsp Honey
1 Vanilla pod
100g of store bought Puff Pastry (half a block)
juice of 1/4 Lemon
50g of butter (2 big tablespoons)

Recipe
Pour the shots of honey liquor in a bowl and add the figs. If you're using another type of liquor, add about 1/2 tbsp of sugar to the mixture. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

When you're ready to start making your tarte tatin, pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees and roll your pastry out and cut it into a circle large enough to fit the base of your pan. Leave the pastry to one side and warm up a small frying pan.

Add the butter and leave it to melt a little and then add the honey liquor that your figs have been macerating in, and the tablespoon of honey. Give it a mix with a spoon and cook on a high heat until it starts to caramelize. At this point your kitchen should smell gorgeous. :) Cut your vanilla pod in half and remove the seeds to add to the pan. Then add the pod itself. Cook for a further minute or until you can smell the vanilla in the syrup.

Add the figs to the pan and arrange them so they are in one layer and tightly packed. Give the whole thing a squeeze of lemon and leave the figs to warm through slightly. After 2 minutes, cover your figs with the puff pastry. Make sure you press down against the bottom of the pan so parts of the pastry can cook in the pan. Put the pan in the oven on a medium shelf for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, your puff pastry should be nicely browned over the top and there may be some bubbles popping out over the sides. Using kitchen gloves, take your pan out of the oven and leave it to cool for 5 minutes or so. To turn your tarte tatin over, place a plate over the pan and in one swift motion, flip the pan over. Serve immediately with your choice of creamy topping. :)