Mini Fig Cakes for Fall and Ginger Jazzed Brownies

Another Tuesdays with Dorie twofer here, just can't seem to get them up on time! This week our recipe pick was A Fig Cake For Fall, picked for us to try by Ursula of Cookie Rookie, thank you Ursula! I looked and looked for fresh figs but could not find any, so I used dried figs instead. I also switched out the lemon for an orange and made a half batch of mini cakes instead of one big one.

Here are the cakes before baking, I only had enough batter to fill five jumbo "Baker's Secret Texas sized" muffin cups.

Here are the dried figs simmering in the orange scented honey wine sauce, yum!

Here is what they looked like after baking and dusted with some powdered sugar, sadly, I let my wine sauce simmer too long and it turned into more of a thick caramel, and not in a good way, so I couldn't use it on my cakes, but the little taste I had was delicious!

I topped them with whipped cream and they were absolutely delicious, although different from their intended version, they were enjoyed. You can see that the dried figs sank to the bottom, but that was fine...

Now on to last week's recipe, Ginger Jazzed Brownies, picked for us to try by Clivia of Bubie’s Little Baker...

While I was buying fresh ginger, I saw this little jar of chopped ginger and had to give it a try. I love ginger but hate chopping it and thought the finely minced texture (almost a paste) would work perfectly in these brownies, since last time we made the chocolate gingerbread with TWD the ginger chunks were a little too overpowering for my clan. I ended up loving this jarred ginger and immediately went to amazon to see if I could order it in bulk, sadly, to no avail -- come on Christopher Ranch, sell on ammy!

The jarred ginger worked perfectly and I personally loved these brownies, they were so delicious! My kids and the neighbor kid loved them too, I heard they were "awesome!" -- which always makes a baking mommy smile. Picky husband on the other hand, poor guy was excited to try these, and I failed to mention they were ginger brownies, he took one bite and said "yuck!" and thought they were gross. Sorry, honey, I will make you regular brownies soon :)

Beggar's Linguine

Time for French Fridays with Dorie! Today's recipe is Beggar's Linguine and let me tell you, I was so excited to give this recipe a try. You know how when you first page through a new cookbook and one recipe stands out to you, well this was that recipe for me with Around My French Table. It just sounded so delicious and like such a new combination of flavors and textures -- and it's pasta -- one of my very favorite foods.


To do this dish justice I had to make fresh linguine. Then I got the add-ins ready; pistachios, almonds, figs, and instead of raisins (we were out) I used dried Michigan montmorency cherries. Not pictured is the zest, I used the zest of a Minneola Tangelo, which was a nice bright orange -- and also the freshly grated parmigiano reggiano.


Please excuse the bad photos of this recipe, hubby had been messing around with the camera settings and I hadn't switched them back before I started shooting and didn't notice they were not quite right until I uploaded them.

Above, the add-ins are simmering in butter.

This was such a yummy lunch. I am happy I used fresh pasta as I think that really helped make this a special dish. Kids weren't too keen on this dish, oh-well. I thought it was great, and it was nice to use some figs, which I like but always forget about. Another delicious dish with the FFwD gang :)