Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Fig-orama

Yes, today is FIG-ORAMA day. Seriously. Fig city. Fig overload. Not that I'm complaining, not really...they are delicious of course and a real treat.

 But they don't keep well, a few days at best in the fridge - and they have taken over our fridge space (we have 2 fridges also!). So this morning I have made a batch a fig jam:


And chopped up a whole lot to dry in the dehydrator:



I overdried the last lot of figs I dried in the dehydrator, probably a combination of cutting them too small and just plain leaving them in the machine too long. So this time I cut these ones in halves and the bigger ones into thirds. Might take a bit longer to dry that way but I hope to avoid the crunch effect. They should be dry but still pliable.. Following some dehydrating guidelines I've dipped them in ascorbic acid (vitamin C) liquid prior to the drying. This is "an antioxidant that keeps fruit from darkening and enhances destruction of bacteria during drying". Sounds good to me! Fortunately I had the ascorbic acid left over that I bought a while back for use in bread making.

The next fig project will be a cake, fig and chocolate:


This is a recipe I haven't tried before. Makes a loaf type of cake. I'm hoping it will be tasty.

Spent a lot of time yesterday evening drooling over fig recipes on Pinterest!



2 comments:

BLD in MT said...

I've never eating a TRULY fresh fig. I am sure they are the best. How good you're finding ways to store and use them all! I've totally dried things too much with our dehydrator...its tricky! I don't want to over-dry, but I don't want them to spoil because they're not fully dry! Hopefully you found the right balance this go round.

Cabbage Tree Farm said...

Hi Beth
I hope you get the chance to try a fresh fig someday, they are really something.
The dehydrator is still going - I turned it off overnight and after about 7 hrs the figs are still not dry, then again my info says 12-24 hrs.