Matcha and figs tart

The perfect summery figs and matcha tea tart: crunchy , sweet and balanced between the matcha tea earthiness and bitterness and figs sweetnes. A simple and fresh recipe to enjoy the last batch of sweet figs this years and creat an impressive looking dessert in no time. So harry up hunt those last figs of the season in your local market and try it out i promise you will LOVE IT !

Figs , sweet, juicy, colorful, a piece of fruit coming straight from heaven . This is how much i love figs , figs are not just one of the tastiest fruits that i love but they are full of memories and bring up those childhood sweet moments back , the times when we use to pick huge figs from my grandfathers front yard figs tree .It was a huge tree we could eat out of it for more than 7 weeks each year and it doesn't stop giving big juicy and extremely sweet fruits.

When growing up we only ate figs fresh out of the tree we didn't cook them neither used them in salads but then i discovered the figs tarts when i moved to France and that changed my relationship with figs forever ...

And since i became obsessed about making tart figs whenever i lay my hands on some good quality ones in season . In the last 3 years i had perfectioned a classical yet perfect flavor combination which is figs , pistachios and mascarpone cream . Some of you who have been following my instagram whould remember my previous figs and pistachio tarts topped with mascarpone cream ( i never published the recipe for this tart eventhough it was definetly a viral post on my instagram but i was not really writing this regularly at the time).

But this year i wanted to try something new ,i mixed up figs with a new flavor that i am using for the first time in baking which is "Matcha green tea". I never had any idea involving matcha tea in baking before but this time i wanted to explore the endless combinations that can be created to balance that earthiness and bitterness that characterizes it and decided to creat the best matcha and figs tart ever .

The figs sweetness actually perfecty marry the matcha tea complex flavor and it came out so good or " this peace of tart tastes like a dream " like my collegue said when tasting it.

Sadly this years good figs season have been a little bit shorter than usual and i couldn't experiment that much with other new recipes but at least this matcha and figs tart recipe was a success and i am so proud of hitting that balance point in flavors since the first try .

The base of this matcha and figs tart is a simple "pâte sucrée" that i oftenly use in all my tart recipes because it makes a butter , crumbly and yet crispy crust you can check all the recipe details in my last ["Peach and blueberries galette"](https://chocolate-free.com/article/easy-peach-and-blueberries-galette.html ""Peach and blueberries galette"") i usually make a big batch of it ach time and keep it in the fridge for 6 to 8 weeks. The only difference is this time i added a tea spoon of matcha tea pouder in the dough to emphasis the matcha flavor in my tart .

let's talk a little bit about the filling , i made a simple custard flavored with matcha tea and added some gelatine pouder to set it nice and flat in the tart base . I rarely use gelatine or Agar-Agar when baking but sometimes it is necessary to give you the perfect texture and hold the wated shape of your dessert . I know that using any gelifying ingredient can be tricky if you don't know some basic tis about using it so here are some tips about using them .

How to use Gelatin 101 :

Powder Gelatin :

Powder gelatin is an animal gelatine usually coming from porc but there is also a beef version it comes either in small packets like baking powder or in bulk where you will have to weight it yourself for each recipe . to get a perfect gelified ans yet soft texture there is a simple equation :

1 tbsp of gelatine ( 15 gr) + 500 ml of liquid

This is usually the ratio used for most of the recipes and of course you can adapt it depending on the liquid quantity that you want .

Let's move to how to use the powder gelatine . It is actually easy there is only three steps:

1. Blooming : place your gelatine powder with a ratio of 1 tbsp of gelatine powder to 2- tbsp of cold water and let it sit for 15 min , this process is called blooming it is basically re-hydrating the gelatine .
2. Cooking : gelatine is sensitive to temperature so you have to be careful and add it into a simmiting liquid (not boiling) and stirr it very well on the heat to dissolve it, to make sure that it is dissolved lift the spoon used to dissolve the gelatine a little if there is no lumps on it it should be fine. Be careful the liquid should never boil , it should only be worm to dissolve the gelatine otherwise the gelatine wil break and it will never set after cooling it .
3. Cooling : to get the best result out of gelatine it should sit at the fridge ideally overnight or at least for 4 hours until it is well set to the touch .

Agar-agar : Actually agar-agar is so simple to use contrary to what people think the quantity equation is :

10 gr of Agar-agar * 500 ml of liquid

How to use Agar-agar : we only have two steps

1. Cooking :unlike the gelatine the agar-agar should be directly added into a hot liquid and should boil in it for a minute or two to give it's best effect .
2. Cooling : the liquid needs to be stored in the fridge to sit for at least 5 hurs and ideally overnight .

Tip : Some fruits contain an enzime that prevents the gelatine from working so it is always preferable to heat any fruits juices , especially exotic fruits like pinapple , mango and kiwi, before integrating it to any type of gelifying ingredient and that will kill the enzime preventing the gelifiying process .