

Yesterday I baked some tarts with leftover chestnuts and canned figs for desserts. I tried googling for recipes combining these 2 fruits and I could only find one. Therefore, I decided to combine various tart recipes together and came up with this. I did not want to waste too much time making these tarts and it took me only about an hour from preparation to baking. I used the fig and chestnut tarts with jam filling recipe from http://www.thelovebite.com but changed the filling to mascarpone and ricotta cheeses. The outcome is a nice biscuity tart crust with a soft, light, fruity centre and a nutty chestnut flavour inside ლ(´ڡ`ლ)

Makes about 12 muffin size tarts (Use a muffin tray)

Ingredients for the tart crust

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

2oz / 60g shortening

grated zest 1/2 lemon

1/3 cup superfine sugar

2 tablespoons buttermilk

1 egg

a pinch of salt

Ingredients for the filling

6-8 roasted chestnuts (breaks into small chunks)

4-5 Fresh figs or canned figs

150 grams ricotta cheese (room temperature)

200 grams mascarpone cheese (room temperature)

80gm castor sugar

70gm-80gm honey

1-2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon flour

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

(You may have some leftover liquid filling. Keep it for a day or 2 for another tart!)

Pre-heat your oven to 375f or 190c

Place the tart crust dry ingredients except for buttermilk and egg into a food processor and pulse to fine crumbs. Then add in the buttermilk and egg and pulse, a dough will be formed. Add 1 teaspoon of water if its too dry for the dough to form. Roll the dough into a log 12 inches in a cling wrap and slice into 12 pieces. Hand roll each piece into a ball and press into a nicely greased muffin tray, gently press the pastry to spread evenly out to the sides of the muffin cups. Once done, put the tray into the refrigerator while you work on the filling.

Break the chestnuts into small chunks (not too small, you want to be able to have some crunchiness in the filling.) and slice the figs. Combine mascarpone, ricotta, sugar, honey, vanilla, cinnamon powder, eggs, egg yolk and flour in a food processor and blend until smooth. Take out the muffin tray from the refigerator. Distribute the chestnut chunks evenly among the muffin cups before spooning the cheeses mix into the tart shell. Arrange sliced figs on top to finish off. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until filling is set but still slightly wobbly in the centre and golden. The crust should have a nice crunchy yet soft base. If you like chestnut flavour, add more in the muffin cup.

We drizzled some spiced blueberry cherry port sauce on the tarts which I made a week ago and it was very good together.

Try it yourself!