This phyllo pie is a revisitation of the apricot-almond tofu pie I made a year ago, but this time, featuring figs and burnt honey! I love baking tarts with my homemade phyllo, just because it gets really crispy and flaky as it bakes. In the case of this recipe, I did make some substitutions. Instead of brown butter, I used olive oil to play off of the figs. With the filling, I still did an almond tofu filling, since I love pairing almonds and figs, but I subbed out the sugar with burnt honey. I love the complexity of caramelized honey, and it adds a much needed contrast to the much milder figs, compared to the tart apricots. Figs, honey, almonds, and olive oil come together to make a delicious combination, with sweet, nutty, grassy, and bitter all being flavors represented across those ingredients! I also adorned the edges of my pie with an olive oil-white chocolate powder, just to bring in more of that mild olive oil flavor, while also adding some color contrast – while I love the aesthetic of powdered sugar on desserts, it gets too sweet for my taste, but this white chocolate-olive oil powder, due to being made with maltrodextrin, which kind of mutes the flavor of other ingredients, is not too cloying by comparison! All in all, this was a pleasant, summer to autumn take on my previous apricot phyllo pie!

For the phyllo dough:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
4 tbsp cold water
2oz olive oil, plus more for lining

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and water together until a soft dough is formed. Split the dough into 9 balls and roll each ball into a 5-inch disk. Brush the top side of 8 of the disks with the olive oil. Stack the disks so that the top layer is unbrushed with olive oil

. Roll the dough stack to be roughly 12 inches in diameter and transfer the dough into a lightly olive oil-lined 9-inch pan. Prick the bottom of the dough, and place down on top of the dough and sheet of parchment and baking weights. Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Halfway through baking, remove the weights. Let the pie shell cool down before removing from the pan.

For initial assembly:
3oz white chocolate

In a double boiler, melt 2oz of the white chocolate completely in a heatproof bowl. Take the bowl of heat and stir in the rest until melted in as well. Brush the melted white chocolate around the inside of the fully-baked tart shell. Transfer the tart shell to the freezer to allow the chocolate to fully harden first before filling it.

For the burnt honey-almond tofu blanc manger:
4oz honey
1 cup water
1/3 cup Hong Kong almond powder
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tbsp agar agar
a pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a blender, puree all of the ingredients, minus the honey, heavy cream and vanilla together until smooth to form your Hong Kong almond milk. Pour the liquid through a sieve. In a pot, bring honey to a boil and cook on high heat until it reaches 350 degrees F. Into the honey pot, pour your almond milk, and whisk on medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes; the mixture should begin to boil and thicken slightly. Pour the thickened Hong Kong almond milk into a bowl and whisk in the other ingredients to form the blanc manger base. Pour the blanc manger into the prepared tart shell and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before attempting to cut into.

For the figs:
10 figs, cut in half
olive oil
salt

Toss the figs in olive oil and salt. Sear the figs, cut side down on high heat for 10 seconds.

For the white chocolate-olive oil powder:
.5oz white chocolate
.1 olive oil
a pinch of salt
1 cup tapioca maltodextrin

Melt the white chocolate and olive oil over a double boiler, then mix in the other ingredients to form a powder. Arrange the figs on top of the tart and dust the edges with the powder to finish.