tarte tropézienne

For New Year’s Eve, I decided that we needed a bigger dessert for our gathering of seven people total. I had half a recipe of brioche dough left over, so this was a relatively quick dessert, so I used this recipe from my old reliable Claire Saffitz’ Dessert Person. She explains that tarte tropézienne was invented by a Polish chef in St. Tropez and Brigitte Bardot liked it so much that she dubbed it “tarte tropézienne.”

The brioche dough goes into a 9-inch round cake pan and baked with a generous sprinkling of demerara sugar. After it’s cooled, I asked our niece to level it since I’m really bad at that, and then both halves get soaked with an almond honey syrup. Pre-cut the top layer so all the filling doesn’t squeeze out when you serve it, top the bottom layer with crème diplomat (equal parts crème pâtissière and unsweetened whipped cream) and then arrange the slices back on top. This dessert was really easy to assemble and quite delicious to eat! Highly recommended.