Fig Crème Brûlée Tart
 
A crème brûlée tart with flaky pastry, creamy custard, and crunchy toasted sugar. Note that I have slightly simplified the tart dough recipe here from the method I describe in my tutorial for perfect shortcrust pastry.
Ingredients
For the tart dough:
  • 200g flour
  • 50g sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 100g cold butter, diced
  • ~4 tablespoons ice water
For the crème brûlée filling:
  • 1 vanilla bean
  • 300g cream
  • 160g milk
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1 egg
  • 65g sugar
  • ⅛ teaspoon salt
To assemble:
  • Sugar
  • Fresh figs, sliced
  • Egg whites beaten to stiff peaks (optional)
  • Edible flowers (optional)
Method
Prepare the tart dough:
  1. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add in the diced butter and cut in with a fork until you are left with pea-sized pieces of butter. Alternatively, use a food processor.
  2. Add in one tablespoon of ice water at a time, lightly incorporating it with a fork, until dough holds together. Do not overwork the dough. Do not add too much water.
  3. Bring the dough into a ball, flatten into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and let chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to a week.
Prepare the crème brûlée filling:
  1. Combine the cream and milk in a medium saucepan. Scrape the vanilla bean into the milk mixture and add in the whole vanilla bean. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, cover, remove from heat, and let steep for 30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolks, egg, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
  3. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the steeped milk. Strain into a measuring cup that you can use to pour the filling into the tart shells.
Bake the tart shell:
  1. Roll out the dough on a floured work surface and cover the tart pan of your choosing with the dough. This recipe made 4 3’’ diameter round tarts as well as one large 8’’ tart, but of course you can just make one large tart or many smaller ones. Put the tart pans in the freezer to chill for at least 30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
  3. Prick the bottom of the tart dough with a fork a few times (this helps prevent the dough from rising). Cover the top of the dough completely with tinfoil. Add pie weights or beans on top of the tinfoil (again, this helps prevent the dough from rising).
  4. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the tinfoil with the pie weights/beans and bake for an additional 20 minutes, or until golden. Leave tarts in the tart pans.
Bake the crème brûlée filling:
  1. Pour the crème brûlée filling into the tart shells. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 25-30 minutes, or until the filling jiggles slightly when the tart pan is disturbed.
  2. Cool at room temperature. Remove from tart pan (unless you plan to serve the tart in the pan). Place in the fridge until cold/overnight.
To assemble:
  1. Remove tarts from fridge and sprinkle a generous layer of sugar over the crème brûlée center. Caramelize with a blow torch. Alternatively, use the broiler setting of your oven but be sure to cover the edges of the tart with tinfoil so they do not burn.
  2. Let stand at room temperature for at least five minutes to allow sugar to harden. Then, decorate with figs, toasted meringue, and edible flowers.
Recipe by IronWhisk at http://www.ironwhisk.com/2017/07/fig-creme-brulee-tart/