Fig Tarts with Goat Cheese & Honey

This tart combines fresh figs, tangy goat cheese, honey and thyme–all over a perfect tart dough. Pairing fig jam with bucheron goat cheese is one of my favorite cheese pairings, so I knew the fresh figs and goat cheese in this tart would be a great combination.

One of the best parts about this recipe isn’t the fig-goat cheese pairing–it’s the tart dough. This is a unique tart dough that doesn’t just use butter and flour. It also uses a good amount of cream cheese and cornmeal. The cornmeal adds bite to the crust while the cream cheese adds richness–a delightful combination!

The tart dough is much stickier than other pie doughs. Once I managed to get most of the sticky dough out of the food processor, I kneaded it in my hands until it felt thoroughly combined. I then shaped it into a ball, cut it into quarters, and flattened each quarter into a round disc. I wrapped each disc in plastic wrap and chilled them in the refrigerator overnight.

Rolling out the dough was super easy–I had no problems even though it was initially very sticky. I rolled each disc into 7-inch rounds.  I then layered sliced figs, drizzled honey, crumbled goat cheese and tucked in a few thyme sprigs. I baked it at 375 for about 30 minutes. The 4 tarts came out perfectly.

I enjoyed eating these warm, fresh from the oven. The warm figs form a compote-like filling, and the goat cheese was a great creamy complement to the flaky crust.

Recipe adapted from Yummy Supper.