1. Chocolate Miniature Tartlet Pastry: Put the flour, sugar, and cocoa powder in a food processor bowl. Process just to blend the ingredients. Scatter all the butter slices over the flour mixture, and process with on/off bursts until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal.

2. Whisk the egg and vanilla together in a small bowl. With the motor on, pour the egg mixture down the feed tube. Process until the ingredients form a ball. Remove dough to the work surface, and with heel of your hand press the dough together until it is smooth and cohesive.

3. Adjust rack to lower third of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange four dozen ungreased 1½-inch round fluted tins close together on a 12-×-15½-×-½-inch baking sheet.

4. Pinch off 1 teaspoon of the dough and drop it into a tin. Repeat until all the tins contain dough. One by one, roll each piece of dough into a ball in the palms of your hands. (This step aids in shaping the tartlets more evenly.) With index finger, press center of dough ball into the tin, then press dough up the sides while rotating tin to distribute the dough evenly.

5. Chocolate Frangipane Filling: Process all the filling ingredients in a food processor bowl until the mixture is smooth and free of lumps. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of it into each shell.

6. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the crusts’ edges appear dry and slightly firm to the touch. Place the baking sheet with tartlets on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, or until tins are cool enough to touch. Squeeze each tin between your thumb and forefinger, turn it upside down, and let the miniature tartlet drop into the palm of your hand. Place on rack to cool completely.

7. Repeat the filling and baking procedure with the remaining dough.

8. Decoration: Just before serving, place a thin fig slice on top of each tartlet.

9. Stack undecorated tartlets in an airtight sturdy plastic container and freeze up to 10 days. Store decorated tartlets in one layer in a covered foil-lined cardboard container, such as a cake box, at room temperature up to 3 hours.