Savory Salty Sweet

Remember when I spoke of how much I cherish the pawning off of bushels of backyard zucchini? Well, I feel exactly the same way about being given excess figs. To be perfectly candid, I feel this way about being given excess anything that hails from a nearby garden—vegetables, fruit, compost, you name it. I am not picky when it comes to this particular arena.

I made this tart as a way to say thank you to the people to gifted me the figs. It seemed only fitting to turn around and share the figs in return, albeit in different form. As a lover of all things tart-and-galette, I felt like the only way to truly make these figs into a personalized gift was to fold them into a familiar form. The figs, being incredibly ripe, need no doctoring whatsoever. You can serve this galette as a simple dessert, adorned with just a spoonful of honey sweetened cream, or as a main course, accompanied by a salad and perhaps a bit of salume and a slip of bread. I’ll be honest: I ate in while standing in my kitchen, swiping crumbs off of a table, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Last Year: Classic Bialys, Escarole, Leek, and White Bean Panzanella, and Sky-High Apple Pie 

Lemon Chèvre and Fresh Fig Galette

1 pastry crust for a single layer pie (this is my all-time favorite crust, courtesy of Tartine)

4 ounces chèvre, at room temperature

finely grated zest of 1 small lemon, about ½ teaspoon total

2 teaspoons honey

pinch of salt

6 large fresh figs, each fig cut into quarters or sixths

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out crust into a roughly 13-inch circle.

In a small bowl combine chèvre, lemon zest, honey, and pinch of salt. Mix together, then use a spoon to spread the mixture onto the rolled out pastry crust, leaving clear a 2-inch border at the edges. Place sliced figs, cut side up, in a single layer over the chèvre, arranging in somewhat of a concentric circle. Gently fold in the edges of the pastry towards the center, overlapping the folds where necessary.

Place the galette onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until the figs are bubbly and the pastry crust is golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6 to 8 people.

Last Year: Salmon Cakes with Lemon and Dill and Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies

Spicy Chocolate Cherry Cake

To stand up to the sweetness of the cherries and chocolate, I really made the chilies pop by using fresh chiles, mashed to a paste and stirred into the ganache. Because the hotness of chiles can vary quite a bit, I started with about 1/3 of a super hot chile (try using a Serrano or ¼ of a habanero chile), then I tasted the ganache, added more chile, tasted, added more, etc. I ended up using a whole chile here, but you can certainly use less if you want a less pronounced spiciness.

Also, you can double this cake recipe and make one with spicy ganache, one with plain ganache. Double the recipes for both the cherries and the ganache. The recipe below makes my favorite single layer 9-inch cake, which happens to be vegan, though one would never know.

Chocolate Cake

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2/3 cup sugar

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup cold, strong coffee

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thoroughly grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and sugar.  In a medium bowl, mix together the oil, cold coffee, and vanilla.  Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, then whisk together until almost smooth.  Add the vinegar and stir quickly until the vinegar is evenly distributed throughout the batter.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  You will see bubbles rising up in the batter as the vinegar reacts with the baking soda.

Bake the cake in the center of the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle of the cake emerges with just a few moist crumbs attached.  Allow cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache

½ cup heavy cream

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

tiny pinch of sea salt

1 hot chile of your choice, finely diced, then mashed into a paste using either a mortar and pestle or the flat side of a knife. If you really want to temper the heat of the chile, remove the seeds and ribs before chopping and mashing. If you want more heat, leave in both the seeds and ribs.

In a small saucepan set over very low heat, heat the cream until just steaming. Alternately, you could place the cream in a microwave safe bowl and heat it in the microwave until just steaming. Add the chopped chocolate to the warm cream, then allow to sit for 1 minute. Gently stir the chocolate and cream mixture until it is smooth and the chocolate is totally melted. Add the tiny pinch of salt, stir, then add in a small amount of mashed chile and stir again. Taste the ganache for spiciness, then continue to add more and more mashed chile, a little at a time, until the ganache has reached your preferred level of spiciness.

Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Cherry Sauce

1 cup frozen pitted cherries

½ teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon water

tiny pinch of sea salt

In a medium pan set over medium-high heat, combine the cherries, sugar, water, and tiny pinch of sea salt. Gently shake and swirl the pan around over the heat until all the ingredients are intermingled, then allow to sit until the mixture begins to bubble at the edges. Swirl the pan around for 2 to 3 minutes, until the cherries just begin to burst from the heat and the liquid they release begins to thicken just slightly.

Remove from pan and set aside to cool.

To assemble the cake, transfer the cooled cake to a large plate or platter. Carefully pour the ganache over the cake, allowing the ganache to pool in the middle, then gently crest over the sides of the cake. If you want a completely frosted cake, use an offset spatula or a spoon to nudge the ganache around as evenly as possible.

Carefully spoon the cooled cherry sauce over the cake, again concentrating the sauce in the middle of the cake, as it will naturally cascade down the sides on its own.