Fig And Marscarpone Polenta Tart

Fig And Mascarpone Polenta Tart

This is a recipe from a Great News cooking class with Katherine Emminger.  It was outstanding and a dessert that would satisfy everyone's palate.  

I almost forgot to take a photo.  This was a piece of the tart unable to be served because it did not come out of the baking pan neatly.  The original tart was beautiful and delicious!

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Ingredients: 

Pastry:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fine ground yellow cornmeal

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons minced rosemary

1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled and

    cut in pieces

1/3 cup iced Madeira wine or as needed

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In the bowl of a food processor, fitted with the steel blade, pulse to combine the flour, cornmeal sugar and salt.  

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Add the rosemary and pulse once or twice, add the chilled butter a small amount at a time.  Pulse between additions until the mixture resembles cornmeal.

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Continue to pulse the mixture, add the Madiera to form the pastry dough.

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Test the dough to see that it will hold together and add more Madera as needed.

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Press the dough evenly onto the bottom and up the side of a 10" tart pan with a removable bottom.

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Chill the pastry until firm, about 30 minutes.

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On the middle rack of the oven, bake at 25 to 30 minutes until golden.  Transfer from the oven to a cooling rack.

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Filling:

1 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons Madeira wine

1 1/2 pounds figs, washed, drained

   and cut into 1/4 inch slices

1 tablespoon honey or as needed 

   lightly warmed

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In a bowl, combine the mascarpone, sugar, vanilla, and Madeira.  Spread the cheese filling evenly into the cooled pastry.  Arrange the sliced figs over the cheese and brush the figs with the honey to glaze.