Figs: Part Six ~ A Neighbor's Fig Tree ~

 

My oven is still broken.

Right after making the newtons, I geared myself up to make some fig macarons for my last fig post.  I measured the cookie ingredients and made the fig buttercream filling by mixing some leftover homemade fig puree/jam (from the fig newtons) with a standard swiss buttercream.  I was all set to go when I woke up the next morning to find that my oven wouldn't get hot.  

It's one thing to take a cookie sheet of already made newtons to a friend's house to stick it in her oven.  It's quite another to make macaron batter, pipe it out, let it sit, bake it in multiple batches, then let it cool.

It's been a week now and after two visits by the building handyman, it still hasn't been fixed.

Grrr.

Since I have other things to post, I leave my fig friends behind with some pictures of a neighbor's fig tree.  I only just noticed its existence a couple weeks ago even though I've been jogging by it for the past year and a half...

But it's pretty neat to see how they actually grow. 

 

Bye bye Mr. Fig.  See you again soon.

Figs: Part Five ~ Fig Newtons ~

Even Nabisco doesn’t seem to have one singular solid story of where the Fig Newton originated from, but the best version states that a baker by the name of Charles Roser came up with the recipe for the fig filled biscuit. Then in 1892, James Henry Mitchell patented a machine that was able to insert fig paste inside pastry dough. The machine was like a funnel within a funnel, continually spitting out fig paste and cookie dough, creating an endless filled cookie that could be cut into individual pieces. Imagine if Nabisco sold foot long Fig Newtons. Amazing. I mean, they’re capable of it. They should. I’d buy a box. I might be the only one buying it though. And I’d buy just one box. Clearly this is the greatest business proposition ever.

Sorry for that tangent. To continue, the rest of the story has to do with the name. If the supposed inventors were a Roser and a Mitchell, why a Newton? Well, the original maker of the cookie was the Kennedy Biscuit Company, soon to be swallowed up into the behemoth that is Nabisco. They had a habit of naming their products after towns nearby. They already had a Shrewsbury, Harvard, and Beacon Hill product, so they chose to utilize Newton, Massachussets good name. And there you have it. The Fig Newton was born.

I love Fig Newtons but the biscuit part always seems a bit dry. And after seeing Martha Stewart’s recipe in her Cookie book, I’ve always wanted to try making it but as with all things in my life, I was just too lazy about it. Until now. I googled a bunch of recipes since I didn’t really like the one in the Cookie book. They looked like bars with all four edges showing the fig filling, not cookies that only had two open sides. I settled on one from CDKitchen.

I made the dough, rolled it out, trimmed the edges, then spooned on some filling I made from figs leftover from other projects. I had two types in the fridge. The darker one came from the Cookie book, except I improvised by using leftover fresh figs instead of dried, and my leftover figs were a mixture of Calimyrnas, Brown Turkeys, and Mission figs. I deviate from recipes. The lighter one was just something I threw together after making the mousse cake. I had leftover Brown Turkeys and Calimyrnas so dumped them in a saucepan with some sugar and simmered away. They were both nice and figgy, but the red wine one tasted more sophisticated. More adult. Guess I’m not a kid anymore.

Then it came time to bake except my oven wouldn’t turn on! I’m sure it’s just the pilot light but I’m scared of gas. I ended up driving to J’s and borrowing her oven. I felt funny driving with the cookie sheet on the passenger seat next to me. All they needed was an oven! Poor little guys.

Soon they were placed in the comforting warmth of the oven and they baked up nice and brown. I cut them while still warm to minimize crackage of the cookie dough. They didn’t turn out as the most shapely creatures, but they were tasty! The edges were a little crispy, and the filling warm and soft. And as K pointed out, they actually tasted like figs. They tasted better than the photographs make them out to be.

I still like artificial machine made scarily uniform Nabisco Fig Newtons though. Mine are better, but I’m not baking an entire batch for you for $2.50. Freshness comes with a price!

Figs: Part Four ~ Fig Crostata ~

I had some leftover crostata dough in the freezer from my baking day with J so I made a Fig and Blue Cheese mini crostata. It’s just with sliced mission figs and crumbles of blue cheese strategically placed throughout. The flavor combo was perfect, and the crust came out nice and flaky, just like the first batch. Michael Chiarello's recipe is a keeper.

Figs: Part Three ~ Fresh Fig Tartlets with Creme Patisserie & Chocolate Crust ~

Since I failed at the mousse, I ended up turning the rest of the tart crusts into these:

Basically, instead of plating the mousse dome and garnishing as was the original intent, I just dumped a bunch of diced figs on top of the creme patisserie and made fruit tartlets instead. Creme Patisserie is just the fancy name for pastry cream. They tasted great, but I was making sad faces the rest of the day. G had to keep telling me to stop being so sad but I couldn’t help it. Mousse that doesn’t set isn’t maddening or frustrating or anything other than just plain old sad...sad sad sad.

Booooooo.

Figs: Part Two ~ Fig Mousse Cake and Toshi Yoroizuka ~

This turned out to be one of the biggest disasters I’ve made in a long time. Tasted great, but the mousse DIDN’T SET! I went back and compared the recipe to other similar ones and it looks like I used enough gelatine but clearly not...I must have measured something incorrectly. After I froze and unmolded them, they slowly melted, like ice cream. Argh.

The recipe I attemped was from Toshi Yoroizuka, a famous pastry chef in Japan. He’s known as being the only Japanese person to have ever worked in a 3 star restaurant in Belgium. Whatever that really means. Regardless, his boutiques in Japan have hour long waits daily, and it’s pretty much impossible to get a seat inside the salon where he makes plated desserts in full view behind a counter. This was the second recipe of his that I attempted.

The plan was to make something that looked like this: http://grand-patissier.info/ToshiYoroizuka/recette/zoom141.htm

Granted I don’t have molds like his but below is how mine ended up. Unfortunately, with the melting going on, I only completed one of the cakes. I gave up on the other ones. I made them into tartlets instead. Fail.

In case you’re curious, the English translation of the recipe is below. Here’s the link to the original in Japanese: http://www.grand-patissier.info/ToshiYoroizuka/recette/recette141.htm

I halved everything since one thing I learned from that first recipe I attempted was that his recipes yield a LOT. I really should’ve just made a third of the recipe. I could probably even get away with making just a fourth since I only have eight molds of everything anyway, but first things first. I need to succeed at making the mousse set...bah.

Figs: Part One ~ Fig, Mascarpone, and Goat Cheese Tartlets ~

The first fig dish I attempted was something I sort of made up. A little over a year ago when I first got into baking, I had tried making Claire Clark’s Gooseberry mascarpone tart from her book Indulge: 100 Perfect Desserts. It tasted great, but I had to use grapes since gooseberries were so expensive, and I poured too much of the cheese mixture into the tart before baking so it overflowed. Needless to say, it wasn’t a pretty dessert but it did taste good, and I certainly learned from it.


I thought making that tart but with fresh figs would be delicious. There were a lot of frangipane tart recipes using figs, but I’m not the biggest fan of that almond mixture, so I decided to experiment. As I was shopping for mascarpone cheese, I spotted some goat milk cream cheese and had to go for it. I’m not the biggest proponent of goat cheese but thought the tartness, offset a bit by the mascarpone cheese, would make for a creamy companion to the sweetness of the figs.


Let me tell you, I ended up right on that one! I also substituted lemons for the oranges in the original recipe, to decrease the sweetness of the dish. I blind baked the tart shells, was careful not to overfill it with the cheese mixture, and baked it until the filling was a bit set. Then I took them out and lined up the figs. One thing I learned from the grape/gooseberry experience was that the cheese mixture inflates and covers the fruit. I wanted the figs to stay visible so I thought this might work but it’s not like I had read it in a recipe so couldn’t be sure. It turned out how I wanted, although I can’t say for certain that had I not done that that I wouldn’t have achieved the same outcome. No matter, I can do another trial next time.


I should have made the tart shells a little thicker, and I still ended up overfilling some of them, but all in all they turned out pretty well. And it tasted just like I thought it would. Pat on the back for me. Win.

Figs ~ an introduction ~

Meet Mr. Fig, more formally knows as Ficus carica. He is a native of Mesopotamia but probably has an ancestor from down south in the Arabian Peninsula. The Fig family has been around for generations--there’s fossil evidence of its existance from as far back as the Neolithic period, around 9400 BC. Food-wise, those Sumerians were probably the first to eat the little guys, around 2900 BC. Those figs like to brag how they were one of the first cultivated fruits. When they start talking about it, just nod your head and think about something else. Later on, the Greeks took members of his family west across the Meditteranean all the way over to Portugal, and by the 8th century AD, some adverturous clansmen crossed all the way to China. The Americas weren’t introduced to these guys until the Spaniards decided to go exploring.
 

Mr. Fig and his family like dry, warm places. They don’t do well when it’s cold. Weaklings. Thankfully, they are cultivated 2-3 times a year, once in the spring from the previous season’s shoots, and the new (cough, better) stuff grows in late summer/early fall.  

They’re very delicate and high maintenance though. That long standing family history makes them think they’re more important than other fruits. They have to be eaten quickly after being picked and don’t transport very well. These are not sturdy workhorses. But as much as they think so highly of themselves, I’ll let you in on a little known secret--those guys aren’t even real fruits! Those posers. Imposters I tell you. They’re actually the flower of the fig tree that is inverted into itself. As a flower, they’re duds.

Even so, they do deserve recognition for being the “fruit” that is mentioned the most in the bible. After eating the forbidden apple, Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover their newly discovered parts. Romans cherished figs as well, especially considering that Romulus and Remus slept with their wolf mom under a fig tree.

All in all, their snobbery is a little justified. Plus, they’re high in fiber and potassium, and surprisingly have quite a bit of calcium in them. So read below to see what some of the major types are and maybe you’ll find one you like enough to make a member of your fruit family.

Adriatic: One of the more commonly seen light green or yellowish-green in color with pale pink or dark red flesh. Not as sweet as other varieties. They have an intense fig flavor when dried, but can also be eaten fresh.

Brown Turkey: These guys are probably the most commonly seen fresh figs out there. They’re medium sized with a purplish skin with a bright pink flesh. Turkey figs are my friends.

Calimyrna: They’re really called Smyrnas but those grown in the 31st state of the USA get a special name. The members of this side of the family are big, round, and have a thick, light green colored skin. The white and pink flesh inside isn’t as sweet as the rest of the clan, but when you get to know them a little better, letting them dry out, they turn soft and tender. 

Celeste: small to medium, violet skin with extremely sweet, white flesh. Good fresh or dried. are about the size of an egg, a purplish-brown when ripe, and a dark, sweet, moist, purple flesh inside.

Kadota: Their claim to faim is that they’re used to make Fig Newtons. Now aren’t they special. Medium in size with a yellow-green skin, they aren’t as sweet as the Adriatic or Mission fig, but this American version of the  
Italian Dottato fig has a bright pink center. awww.

Mission: They’re the smallest of the bunch, but with their dark purple colored exterior and their bright red flesh, they’re flavorful and spunky. They turn black when dried, so watch out. Their name comes from the Spanish missionaries who planted them up and down the California coast.

Foods to follow...