What a Tart!

Over the weekend, I decided to make good use of all the figs I had accumulated and make a Fig and Almond Tart, which in theory should look just like the picture next to the recipe.

I began the process of creating the tarty goodness by washing a whole bunch of black Mission figs.



To ensure they were good, I had about seven before I started cooking. And darn! I didn't get a picture of that. Oh well...

I put the figs into a glass bowl and dug up my grandma's old food processor to begin forming the tart dough.



I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that's old. You're thinking that color (that beige-y sad color) was discontinued in the 1970's because it looks awful. You're thinking it will never work.

Well, I had hope. I was going to give the old girl a shot. I thought, "I'll prove that things don't need to be new to make delicious treats!"

In this coin toss, you won. Fried motor.

With the food processor out of commission, I resolved to make my tart the old fashioned way: with frozen butter. First I put all the dry ingredients together, including a lot of lemon zest.*



Then I folded in the butter, making sure it stayed chunky for tart tenderness, and mushed it with the dry stuff to look like this.



I assure you that in real life, it was not blurry. I then flattened the dough into a disc and put it in the fridge to keep it cool and full of potential.

While that hung out in the fridge, I mixed all of the wet stuff, including some local honey, with my awesome red spatula.



I think the red spatula is the secret. Or following the directions. Either or.

Then I cleaned my workspace so my mom and sister would not have a conniption after reading this blog post.



See, Mom and Steph, look how clean it is!

After basking in this tidiness for about 45 seconds, I busted the dough out of the fridge, rolled it out flat, spread the wet stuff onto it, put some almonds onto that, sliced the figs and laid them on top of everything.



Aww, pretty.

After spreading some fig jam on top of it all for glossiness, I folded the edges over and stuck it in the oven....



...where I stood right outside the door, waiting, wondering, "Is everything OK in there? It isn't doing anything." I think I was waiting for it to bubble like lasagna or something.

The timer finally went off, and all was well. It was cooked and delicious (and, again, not blurry in real life).



I took it to a few places this weekend so people could give it a try, and it was well received (except by my husband, who made sure to give me a kiss on my forehead before he said that I did a really good job, but that he could now confirm that he does not like figs).

I'm really glad people generally enjoyed the tart. It's encouraging when you make edible and likable food. I was sharing my success with my parents this week, which reminded them that that had a gift for me: 3 bags of dried figs.

Oh boy.


*By the way, I do not have a zester either. Food processor, zester...are there other things you think I need?