Cakes & Bakes: Fig & pecan cookies

Justin is quite a porridge maestro and makes it often, particularly in the cold winter months. He has a variety of ingredients that he turns to – nuts & dried fruits, in particular. One favoured combination that we’ve had a few times recently is fig and pecan which works really well. It got me thinking about whether this delicious blend would make good cookies… I couldn’t see why not.

So I rustled up a cookie dough and folded in the aforementioned ingredients. I then dropped spoonfuls on to the prepared baking tray; if you like your cookies to look a little less rustic, you can roll portions between the palms of your hands to form balls. Don’t forget to flatten them with your fingers or the back of a spoon.

The cookies are like fig rolls… only better! They’re certainly going to be making a regular appearance in our biscuit tin!

Click here or on the image below to save my fig & pecan cookie recipe to Pinterest

Fig & pecan cookies

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Cook Time 12

Servings 16 cookies

Equipment

large mixing bowl
wire whisk
rubber spatula
baking sheet

Ingredients

150 g butter softened
85 g demerara sugar
1 medium egg
150 g plain flour
50 g pecans roughly chopped
100 g soft figs roughly chopped

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas mark 6
Grease & line a large baking sheet with parchment paper
In a large mixing bowl and using a wire whisk, cream together the softened butter and demerara sugar
Add the egg and whisk until fully incorporated
Sift over the flour and fold in using a rubber spatula
Stir in the chopped figs and chopped pecans until they are distributed evenly through the cookie dough
Using a tablespoon, drop spoonfuls (about 40 grams each) onto the prepared baking sheet. Leave a couple of centimetres between each as the dough spreads a little
Flatten each with the back of a spoon. You can wet the spoon prior to avoid the dough sticking to it
Sprinkle the top of each with a little granulated sugar to give them a bit of a crunch
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cookies begin to brown around the edges
Allow the cooked cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack
Repeat stages 7-11 until all the cookie dough has been used

Keyword biscuits, cookies, figs, pecans

Cakes & Bakes: Butterkuchen

When I saw the headline of the Guardian article – Churn Baby Churn – I knew that there’d be a recipe for me to attempt. You see, the recipes in the collection all have one thing in common… lots & lots of butter… Justin’s favourite ingredient!

I think I may have heard of butterkuchen (butter cake) before – perhaps I’d seen it made on Bake Off. Butterkuchen or Freud-und-Leid-Kuchen (Joy and Sorrow cake) or Beerdigungskuchen (funeral cake) is often served on occasions such as weddings and funerals or alongside a coffee as a sweet snack in (particularly Northern) German coffee shops. It’s made using a yeasted, enriched dough and, as well as all that butter, huge amounts of sugar too.

You spread the well-kneaded dough out on to a rectangular baking sheet, allow it to rise, prod holes in it, fill the holes with cubes of cold butter, sprinkle with lashings of sugar and flaked almonds, allow to rise again before baking for a quarter of an hour.

The resulting cake is truly scrumptious. The taste and texture reminded Justin of doughnuts. I thought that it also looked like a sweet version of a focaccia.

It’s a new favourite cake on our recipe rolodex!

Click here or on the image below to save the butterkuchen recipe to Pinterest