Food Lust People Love: figs

Showing posts with label figs. Show all posts

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Sticky Cinnamon Figs - Guest post for Magnolia Days

Figs are sweet all on their own but add a little butter, a little honey and a little heat and they turn even sweeter and syrupy, the perfect accompaniment to mascarpone and pistachios.

Guest posts are hard.
I don’t know if it’s just me but when I am writing and cooking and taking photographs for someone else’s space, I feel a lot more pressure than when it’s just for me. Not that I don’t care about you, my own readers. I do! And I want the dish to be as tasty as possible, because we are going to eat it. And I want the photos to be wonderful and draw you in. But, if you are here reading, chances are you like what I make or write or the photos I post, or you at least forgive me my mistakes because you know I mean well. Or you are my mother and would love me anyway. (Hi, Mom!) But as a guest writer on another blog, I'll have new eyes on my work that don’t know me. And I’d hate to be found wanting. Call it the middle child syndrome, perhaps, but I want people to like me! I want to be good enough. Can anyone else relate?

So go read my guest post, okay?
All this moaning is my way of telling you that I have a guest post up today on the wonderful blog Magnolia Days, for my friend and, dare I say, blogging mentor, Renee. Renee has been endlessly generous with her knowledge and advice and kindness over the past three years of my blogging journey. When she asked if I would guest post as she takes a dual milestone birthday celebration trip to Germany with her mother, I jumped at the chance. And then repented in leisure. (See paragraph one above, re: Guest posts are hard.) I made three different recipes because I couldn’t decide what was good enough for a guest post. And, fellow bloggers, just in case I’ve done a guest post for you, know that the anguish was the same. But this time I decided to come public. The chosen recipe is for sticky cinnamon figs and they made the cut because they are sweet and southern, just like Renee.

Check out the figgy honey syrup in the bottom of my baking pan!

Payback is only fair.
Renee has helped me so much that an emphatic “Sure!” was the only right answer. She is instrumental in the smooth running of Sunday Supper and is my partner in crime for Bread Bakers. If you haven’t met her yet, I encourage you to browse through her extensive list of recipes. Everything I’ve made from Renee’s blog has been great but we especially enjoyed her sesame noodles from a couple of years back and more recently, her No-bake Bourbon Pecan Cookies and Asian Pork Lettuce Cups.

Seriously delicious sesame noodles!

Now please go visit my Sticky Cinnamon Figs and meet my friend, Renee!

Monday, June 30, 2014

Figgy Jam Muffins for #MuffinMonday

Fig jam adds a lovely sweetness to these fluffy muffins. Smear on a little more butter and call these breakfast or mid-morning snack. Perfect with a cup of hot coffee or tea.

This summer, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I didn’t go home home, to the little town where I was born. The town of homemade Tabasco sauce and fig preserves, of TG&Y and Easter baskets, of Christmas stockings and eggnog, of grape Crush and Maytag service calls, of vegetable gardens and crawfish, of freedom and backyard bonfires, of first cousins and bubblegum snow cones. Some of my happiest childhood memories hang like Spanish moss from ancient oaks in the New Iberia city park on the Bayou Teche. No matter where I live, I always go home home each summer to visit my grandparents, until finally, last summer, in my 51st year, I didn’t have one anymore.

A few years ago, I happened to be there over the Fourth of July holiday and it occurred to me that it had probably been years since my grandparents had seen fireworks. So we loaded up the car and found ourselves a spot on the bayou that would give us a good view of the city show. We took the seats out of the back of the minivan and set them up like comfy chairs for the old folks to sit on. And together, four generations ooohed and aaahed in the rockets’ red glare, some of us still children, all of us like kids again.

Part of the joy of writing this blog is the satisfaction that comes from searching my own memory and making connections with my heritage and those old folks I miss, even while adapting to what I have available. Figs weren’t wonderful this summer and the sad few I did buy and eat seemed weirdly dry and flavorless, so there was no point in making preserves. But I couldn’t let the season pass without something figgy to enjoy, even if it meant using store-bought jam. As the saying goes, needs must.

Ingredients

2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/3 cup or 75g butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup or 160g fig jam
1/2 cup or 120ml milk

To garnish: Several dried Black Mission figs, optional

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Butter your muffin pan or line it with paper liners.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together the egg, melted butter, fig jam and milk

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until just mixed through.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cups.

Top with a slice of soft dried Mission fig, if desired.

Bake in your preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until golden.

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy! If you celebrate Fourth of July, who are you watching the fireworks with this year?

They smell soooo good!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Gram's Fig Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Glaze for #BundtaMonth

This summer I went to a farmers’ market in New Iberia, Louisiana with my grandmother. We bought a bunch of figs and I made her fig preserves. I mean I made fig preserves for her, from HER own recipe. Simplest recipe ever and you can find it here. On that same visit, she let me clear out the drawer of recipes and cookbooks that she had accumulated over the years and take them home with me. Amongst them, I found her handwritten recipe for fig cake with buttermilk glaze.

Unfortunately, I had sent her all the fig preserves I made so, how to make the cake? Until I found this on the shelf at my local Carrefour in Cairo.

Back in business! Are the Carrefour preserves as a good as Gram’s homemade ones? Probably not. But this cake is awesome and delicious and it is also my contribution for November’s edition of BundtaMonth where we are making spice cake. Scroll on down to the bottom of this post to see links to all the lovely spice Bundt cakes that have been made this month. Gram has a serious sweet tooth and I think she would like them all! Many thanks to our hosts for this challenge: Anuradha at Baker Street and Lora at Cake Duchess.

My grandmother will turn 99 years old next month – on 22 December - and we are hoping and praying that she continues in good health so we can celebrate 100 years next year. And many birthdays thereafter. We think she has a shot at a world record. She still asks to go to the casino on her birthday because they give her free money to gamble! We should all live so long and so well.

Here she is hopping up on the red swing in her yard last summer. Red has always been her favorite color and the swing is her favorite place to hang out.

Her one true love lately is this cat she calls Minou. Which means Kitty in French. All of her cats over the years have been called Minou. Because she has a great sense of humor and it keeps life simple.

And one last photo where she is smiling. That's a hard one to catch. With her two youngest children, my Aunt Nonnie and Uncle Kippy. :) My father is her eldest and he just turned 77 this month. Imagine if your child is 77! Love you, Gram!

Ingredients
For the Bundt:
2 cups or 250g flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups or 340g sugar
1 cup or 225g butter, melted and cooled
1 cup or 240ml buttermilk
3 eggs
1 cup fig preserves (if using homemade, chop the figs and use the juice as well)
1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans because I am pretty sure that’s what Gram would have used.)
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the glaze:
1 cup or 220g sugar
1/2 cup or 120ml buttermilk
1 tablespoon corn syrup or Lyle’s Golden Syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons or 60g butter

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease and flour your Bundt pan liberally.

Mix dry ingredients, add butter and beat well.

Add eggs one at a time, alternating with buttermilk.

Scrape down the bowl.

Then add figs, nuts and vanilla. Beat for another couple of minutes on medium.

Pour into the prepared Bundt pan and bake for one hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool for at least 10 minutes then run a knife or wooden skewer around the pan edges to loosen. I clearly overfilled my pan so I had to cut around the middle to make sure it would release.

Put your cake plate on top of the Bundt pan and invert. If you have greased and floured it well, the cake should drop out easily. Allow to cool completely.

While the cake is cooling, let’s make the glaze. Mix all ingredients and boil for six minutes, stirring constantly. The original recipe says three minutes but the glaze was very runny and I figured, even on a cooled cake, most of it would end up on the cake plate below.

Allow to cool until it thickens slightly. Drizzle over cake.

This glaze hardens somewhat and turns almost clear on the cake, making a shiny sticky, chewy outside which is the perfect match for the tender crumb inside. I cannot tell you how freaking good this is. Hats off to you, Gram! It’s a winner.