Tender pastry filled with a sweet fig filling make Fig Newtons irresistible. Perfect with a cup of tea or coffee.
They are a really lovely biscuit, or cookie, with the tender crumb of a crumbly biscuit which is rolled around a sweet fig filling. The home made version of these biscuits, or cookies, is so much better than those which can be bought in the stores. The filling is moist and sweet but doesn’t have that claggy texture that the commercially produced ones often have.
The process is quite simple and really doesn’t take too much time, and the effort is well worth it, as the resultant biscuits, or cookies, are simply delicious. The biscuit just crumbles in the mouth when taking a bite and the sweet fig filling, with the added flavours of rum(or orange juice) with some cinnamon and cloves, really is fantastic.
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 280g(2 cups minus 2 tbsp, based on scooping packed flour into a 250ml cup) plain flour
- 65g(1/3 cup) caster sugar, or granulated
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 113g(1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed
- 2 medium eggs(large in USA)
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
For the filling:
- 450g(1 lb) soft dried figs, cut into small pieces, with the top knob discarded
- 160ml(2/3 cup) water
- 80g(1/4 cup) apricot jam
- 45ml(3 tbsp) dark rum (or orange juice)
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
Directions
Place the figs, water, rum, jam, cinnamon and cloves into a sauce pan.
Place the pan on the stove and bring to the boil, stirring as it heat up.
Once boiling lower the heat so that the mixture is simmering and leave it, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until the mixture has softened and thickened.
Place the mixture in a bowl and allow it to cool completely.
Mix the baking powder, salt and sugar into the flour
Place the flour mixture into the bowl of a food processor(you can make the dough manually if you wish).
Add the cold butter and pulse until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs.
Add the vanilla extract and the eggs and process until the mixture clumps into a single ball of soft dough.
Remove the dough from the processor.
Place the cooled fig mixture into the processor and blitz until it forms a paste, then transfer into the bowl again.
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F.
Place some parchment paper onto a work surface and lightly flour it.
Divide the dough into two equal pieces.
Roll out one piece to a 32cm by 20cm (13 inches by 8 inches) rectangle.
Cut in half to create two 32cm by 10 cm rectangles.
Also cut the parchment in two as well.
Place the fig mixture into a piping bag.
Pipe about a quarter of the mixture along the length of one rectangle(you can spread on the dough by hand too if you wish).
Roll the dough up over the filling.
Brush the edge of the dough with water and complete rolling the dough over the filling to fully enclose it, with the water sealing the dough.
Transfer the roll onto a baking sheet.
Repeat the process with the second rectangle and then do it all again with the other half of the dough, and another baking tray.
You should now have two trays each with two rolls on them.
Gently flatten the top of the rolls, if you wish.
Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the dough is cooked and just begins to colour slightly(mine took 17 minutes.
Remove from the oven and trim the ends of each roll, then cut each roll into 6 pieces.
Allow them to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
