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Fig Bars
A buttery crust with a filling of homemade fig jam and a crumbly topping made a bit healthier with flaxseed--it's not the Fig Newtons I grew up with but my taste buds are just as happy.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Servings 6 -8
Ingredients
- ***For the Pastry***
- 1/2 cup flaxseed meal
- 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. sugar
- 1 1 /2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 4 oz. (8 Tbsp.) butter, chilled and cut into small pieces (or 7 T butter and 2 tsp coconut oil)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ***For the Filling See Note***
- 1 lb. very ripe figs stems removed, unpeeled, coarsely chopped
- 1/8 cup sugar
- Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
- 1 to 2 Tbs. lemon juice; more or less to taste
- 1/2 cup fig butter from Trader Joes or you can use fig jam
Instructions
-
To make the pastry:
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Heat the oven to 350°F. Combine the flaxseed meal with 2 Tbs. of the sugar and set aside. Process the flour, the remaining 1/4 cup white sugar, the brown sugar, salt and baking powder in a food processor until well blended. Add the butter; process until the mixture looks crumbly then add the egg yolk and vanilla and pulse until mixture is wet and clumping, about 40 seconds (it won't form a ball).
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Line an 8x8 baking dish with two pieces of parchment paper with a little overhang and pack 2/3 of the pastry mixture on the bottom. This isn't necessary but it makes it a lot easier to pull the baked bars out of the pan. Bake until the dough is lightly browned and keeps a slight indentation when you press it lightly, about 20-25 minutes.
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To make the jam: While the crust is baking, cook the figs and sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. This will take about 15-20 minutes. Stir in the lemon zest and the lemon juice, to taste. Stir in the fig butter.
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To assemble: Pour the jam onto the partially-baked crust and spread evenly along the top. Stir in the flaxseed-sugar mixture into the remaining 1/3 of the pastry mixture and sprinkle on top of the jam. Return to the oven and bake for another 25-28 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.
Recipe Notes
1. Adapted from Fine Cooking's Fig Bars with Thyme. 2. Instead of flaxseed meal, you can use walnuts like in the original recipe. Take 1/2 cup of walnuts and process with the 2 tablespoons of sugar until fine. 3. For the jam, I only had one pound of figs so I halved the original jam recipe. Feel free to double the ingredients indicated here and omit the fig butter that I supplemented with. I pound of figs made 1 cup of jam so you might end up with more filling since I only added another 1/2 cup of fig butter. 4. I used 3.5 ounces of butter and 2 teaspoons of coconut oil for the pastry but feel free to use 4 ounces butter as in the original recipe.