Figgy Pudding?

When I think of my Maw Maw, I think of a number of things.  Most of which have to do with food.  She is one of the my favorite comfort food cooks.  I can only imagine this is where my Mom learned to cook, which is where my love of cooking developed (Thanks, Mom!).  Growing up I have distinct memories of her home, and her garden.  She had a huge pear tree and she has the same couple of fig trees that I grew up eating off of.  So fresh you could eat them right off the tree.  This weeks cupcake is a reminder of her.

I believe that figs can be off putting.  The majority of people have never eaten a fig in their lives (How unfortunate)!  Figs have a grainy texture and are mushy, HOWEVER, they have such a pure sweetness, that once you try them, you can't help but to love them.  And they are really pretty to look at.

When I worked at Stella's, we had a seasonal appetizer that was out of this world.  Fig wrapped in Serrano ham topped with blue cheese.  In the first bite you would get the crunch of the Serrano ham which was immediately followed by the sweet softness of the fig and then the blue cheese hits you like a salt truck.  Man, oh Man!  This appetizer is pretty common here in NYC, but this was my first experience of it, and it was perfect.  While thinking about what to put with my fig cupcake, I thought of this perfect appetizer for the perfect frosting.  Since I had experimented with Brie,why not experiment with blue cheese.  In lue of putting more pork into another cupcake, I thought I would add some rock salt on top to serve the same (not so fatty) purpose.

'Not your G-ma's Figgy Pudding'

350 F - 20-25 Min - 16 Yumcakes

2 large eggs
2/3 cup fresh figs, mashed or fig preserves
1/2 cup addition fig preserves
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, room temp


1. Sift together, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Put in mixer and add sugar.  Mix for 30 seconds to combine dry ingredients.


2.  Take 2 tablespoons from figs and whisk into eggs with vanilla and lemon juice, set aside.


3.  Add butter and remaining figs to dry ingredients in mixer.  Mix until moist, and then mix on high for another 2 minutes.


4.  Add egg mixture in 2 parts, mixing well between each addition.


5.  Fill baking cups 2/3 of the way.  Put a small dollop of the additional fig preserves in the center of the baking cup.  The batter should bake up around it.


6.  Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, Enjoy!




For the Frosting:
Cream Cheese Frosting recipe +


1/2 cup blue cheese
1 teaspoon lemon juice


1.  Soften the blue cheese and whisk until all of the lumps are gone.  Let it set again back in the refrigerator.


2.  Combine the cooled  blue cheese, cream cheese, butter, sugar and lemon juice in the mixer until you have reached the desired consistency.





Figs are in season right now, so NOW would be a good time to make these yumcakes.  I spotted figs at one of the grocery stores close by me last week, and in my attempt to get them this week was told they were out of them (go figure).  So I make a quick dash over to the aisle with the jellies and preserves, and luckily found one jar of fig preserves.  For me this wasn't ideal, because I like to use the real thing, but it would definitely work, and would cut out the step of me mashing up fresh figs.  Fig flavor is not extremely strong, so the preserves gave me another idea.  Once you have made the cupcakes, why not put a dollop of the preserves into the middle of the yumcake and let the batter cook around it.  This worked really well.  The yumcakes, while not punching you with flavor, still had the essence of a fig, because when you bit down you tasted each individual fig seed.  YUMMMMMMMY!


Unfortunately without the figs, I couldn't execute my idea about the garnish.  I thought that a 'bruleed' fig slice would have been beautiful.  All you have to do is make a thin slices if fig and put them on a cookie sheet with sugar on top (brown sugar would be delicious) and stick them under the broiler for about 10-20 minutes.  Keep an eye out though, they will definitely burn easily.

I had some bad luck with my first batch of frosting (why there aren't any pictures this week).  I was following another recipe(bad idea).  The consistency was terrible.  I tried adding an egg white foam, and that did not help at all. :(  It hit me that the ingredients that I was using were the same as my cream cheese icing, and so why not just add blue cheese.  So that's what I did.  If you aren't a cheese addict, like me, or don't like Blue Cheese, then use a milder semi-soft cheese.  You want to make sure that you get a salty cheese, so that it will play off of the sweetness of the fig.  I hope that someone is trying some of these, or if not at least enjoying hearing me rant about Cupcakes.