Second Helpings - Cherry and Fig Leaf Tarts

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This week is all about fig leaves and, if you haven’t already, you should check out this week’s free newsletter that features four different ways to use these fragrant leaves including one of my favourite ice creams.

With my love of fig leaf bordering on obsession, this week's Second Helping recipe is all about trying to get as much fig leaf flavour into one recipe. As the dominant flavour of the fig leaf is coconut, I knew that pairing it with cherries would be a great choice. Because cherries are in the middle of their season, I also didn’t want to do much to the cherries themselves, keeping them nice and fresh and the whole dessert not too sweet. I did add a little layer of cherry jam underneath the frangipane, like making a Bakewell tart, because that gave me the best of both worlds: fresh cherries on top with a little concentrated cherry flavour from the jam.

To get as much fig leaf flavour into the dessert as possible, I made a fig leaf frangipane, using the fig leaf sugar. Even though there isn’t a huge amount of fig leaf in this recipe, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the flavour came through in the frangipane. To layer in yet more fig leaf flavour, I tossed the fruit with a little fig leaf syrup - this element is much more subtle, so if you don’t want to make the syrup, don’t worry too much; you can always macerate the fruit in a little sugar instead. As a final flourish of fig leaf, I topped the tarts with a little dollop of whipped cream and finished this with a little of the fig leaf oil, and this felt like the perfect element to finish the dish.