They keep me thinking that we almost had it all

[venta]

Yesterday I took myself for a little wander round Kew Gardens. In between the exciting plants and inconvenient rainshowers, I paused in the café and bought myself a cake and some pop. The cake I bought was a strange-looking thing, rather like a small, dense pain au chocolat. It was, I discovered, actually a giant fig roll.

I presume the giant fig roll is a rare species which Kew is busy conserving. Anyway, I approve. But it has suddenly been revealed to me that I could make fig rolls. I could make giant ones! And eat them all myself!

Anyway... I've had a quick google, and there seem to be a variety of different approaches. The BBC - normally a pretty reliable source of recipes - wants me to boil dried figs with rosewater and brandy. They can sod right off; everything made with rosewater is disgusting. Fact.

Some website or other reckons it's ok to boil the figs in plain water; but they put me off by describing the result as "almost better than shop-bought!" If it's not going to be frankly quite a lot better, then why am I bothering? Fig rolls aren't exactly pricey in your average supermarket[*]. Plus they reckon wholemeal flour, which sounds a bit worthy to me. And the picture looks even more like dog biscuits than normal fig rolls.

Waitrose think I should use fresh figs - but they would, wouldn't they. They also reckon orange zest (boo!) and grated ginger (hurray!)

I imagine I'm likely to read a bunch of recipes and then ignore them all selectively. But I am curious to know if anyone has an opinion on the fresh/dried fig dilemma. Or if anyone has ever successfully made them?

[*] And they are especially cheap in Lidl, but beware! Lidl fig rolls are vile.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the rest, but Waitrose are very wrong. The fresh figs available in this country are frequently tasteless and watery.

Armed only with my ignorance, I'd be tempted to split the difference of the other two recipes and boil the dried sort in water and brandy.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, but they don't mean just any figs. They recommend I use 250g pack Waitrose Wholesome Soft Figs.

(What is it with the wholemeal, wholesome approach? Fig rolls bain't a health food! At leats, not if they're done right...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Also, I strangely drawn to any recipe containing the instruction "boil in brandy" :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Likewise!

(Since posting I've been pondering all the other kinds of alcohol I could maybe add too... I never knew fig rolls could be so much fun!)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Neither's bread pudding, but it's yummy made with granary bread to add nobbly bits to the stodge - maybe wholeme works the same way here?

(I'd be tempted to use chapatti flour, which has /some/ brown, but is far lighter than a completely wholemeal flour. Now I'm wondering whether you could use a date stuffing in Indian breads....)

Oh, and Adele. Clearly not obscure enough if I can recognise the song :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'd actually also been wondering about the possibility of date or fig-and-date rolls :)

I think I might try a mixture of plain and wholemeal flour, which is the way my mum makes bread.

Oh, and Adele. Clearly not obscure enough if I can recognise the song :)

Indeed, Figrolling in the Deep. One kudo to you. And I'm not obscure just for the sake of it, you know!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Mmmm figs.

[lnr]

Those Waitrose soft figs aren't fresh ones! They're a semi-dried version, like you get semi-dried apricots - and they're in the dried-fruit section of a supermarket. Any ready-to-eat ones would be fine, and these Tesco ones are a) cheap and b) not claiming to be wholesome :)

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/#/tesco-price-comparison/dried_fruit/tesco_ready_to_eat_dried_figs_250g.html

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok, that was my misunderstanding then. It seems everyone is agreed that dried(ish :) figs is the way forward.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

All I can say is, giant fig rolls sound amazing. I don't think I've ever cooked with figs so I won't waste your time by opining on how to do it, but if you manage it please post the recipe!

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

A mixture of (plain) white & wholemeal is what gets suggested as a substitute for chapatti flour in various Indian recipes, I just happen to have it in the cupboard, so it's the lazy option by virtue of not requiring separate weighing etc :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The boiling in water-and-brandy part is vastly improved by boiling in water-and-Cointreau instead! A friend and I made fig rolls last week (but from a recipe in a book she has, so not linkable - I'll see if I can grab it tomorrow). There was no brandy in the house so we improvised, and it was extremely good.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Sounds delicious! Although... isn't that a little expensive?!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

She has a holiday home in France and a lot of Cointreau. And I am fairly sure that making your own fig rolls is not about how cheap it is. ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm not sure about that - I'm not big on oranges. However, I'll accept it as proof-of-concept ;) If the recipe were easy to grab that would be great (the recipes I found had quite a range of different pastries for the roll part), but if not no problems - I shall have fun experimenting :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

How giant do you plan to go with your own ones?

Loaf-of-bread-sized might be interesting: you could cut slices off the end and butter them. (Or batter and deep-fry them… possibly.)

I reckon you could get away with all sorts of interesting variations in flavour. A warm spice like cumin or chili flakes might add a bit of zing. Or some tamarind, to cut the cloyingness of the fig.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Probably not that giant, at least initially til I get the hang of them. I fear loaf-of-bread size would result in a poor pastry-to-fig ratio that would remove some of the inherent rolliness (though the fritter idea is intriguing...)

[metame.livejournal.com]

Never paid for fresh figs, but ones straight off the tree are full of flavour (it's a taste I took a while to acquire but that most of my family love, so got plenty of exposure).

Could be another issue caused by storage, and need to pick them unripe and hope to bring them on in transit?

Hmm, ....

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Could well be.

My previous experience of fresh figs was from a tree in my grandpa's garden (he lived in the South of France, hence the "in this country" above). Those were amazing. Don't know what exactly accounts for the difference.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Sunnier/warmer countries definite give you more and larger figs, but they seem to ripen pretty well here given any sustained decent weather and the end product is just as good.
Probably also worth noting that the fig trees I know have all been in the very South of England, and from an individual tree nurtured by my very green-fingered Grandfather.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

We get pretty decent figs on our tree here, so you might well do in Oxford if you have a sunny spot. You have to keep the tree watered when it's small, and protect from frost, but it pretty much looks after itself once established.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the supermarkets are somehow managing to make tasty things mediocre. Ho hum, wouldn't be the first time!

[grumblesmurf.livejournal.com]

Nice idea, but I've no idea where you're going to get a sufficiently large quantity of wasps to include. Unless the alcohol is there to lure them in, perhaps?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

No advice, but if you ever make such a monstrosity, I'd love to see a photo of it sat next to a "normal" fig roll for scale.