Gettin figgy with it

Anyone who has ever been a college student, or a parent to a college student, knows that the return of the prodigal son or daughter—on Columbus Day, or Thanksgiving, or winter break—always involves a prodigal stocking of pantry shelves.

Or in my case, refrigerator shelves. My mother has always referred to me as her ‘fruit bat,’ proudly parading me around the farmer’s market upon my return from school, explaining her massive purchases at the Bethesda Women’s Farm Market by pointing at me and exclaiming, “The fruit bat is home!” I’m pretty sure that, given the amount of fruit she was buying, anything capable of flight was pretty far off the mark, but it was endearing.

Less endearing, however, is the origin of that nickname. When I was about five years old, the family took a trip out to Sacramento, CA to the home of a family friend—who had fig trees growing in their backyard. I went apeshit. I ate figs presented me at the kitchen table, figs wrested from Maxine en route from the fig tree to the kitchen table, and direct from the tree. I made myself massively sick in a most embarrassing way, which is probably not suitable content for a lady's blog. (I like to leave something to the imagination, but here are the main dramatis personae: 5-year-old Alex, lots of figs, and a lovely private swimming pool.)

You'd think such traumatizing experiences would have taught me my lesson, but to this day, I have zero self control around the things. My mom, true to form, has made a habit of buying them for me as a treat since I’ve been home, and every time I open the fridge to consider lunch or dinner, I do so over a fig that I’ve just absentmindedly grabbed from the carton. As a result, the cartons never last very long. So, consider yourself lucky that this cobbler made it into existence. Like the last recipe, it uses the unique mix of summer and fall produce we have available at this time of year—crisp autumn apples, the last of summer’s berries, and, of course, figs.

Apple, Fig and Blackberry Cobbler

Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook

*I stuck with the recipe’s filling, but instead of using a more pastry-like cobbler crust, I used a family favorite “cottage pudding” crust from Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook—it involves no cold butter, cut/manhandled into coarse crumbs, but a much simpler, much less messy mixing of melted butter and buttermilk into dry ingredients. As you would expect, it turns out a more drop-biscuit like topping, rather than a pastry topping. I doubled the FF recipe for the amount of fruit I was dealing with, and ending up with a 3:1 ratio of pudding to fruit—which was fine with me, but if you like a higher fruit ratio, I would stick to 1.5x the recipe presented here.

Filling:

6 fresh figs, halved (about 1 ½ c.)

6 apples (McIntosh, Granny Smith or Golden Delicious…or any baking apple), peeled, cored and cut into ¼ in. thick wedges

1 pint blackberries, rinsed and drained

½ c. granulated sugar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

finely grated zest of ½ lemon

Cottage pudding (remember to go with at least 1.5x this recipe):

1 ½ c. flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ c sugar

1 egg

½ c milk (or buttermilk)

½ c. unsalted butter, melted (one stick)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Butter a 13x9” baking dish, or a 2 ½ - 3 qt. casserole dish.

Make the filling: combine figs, apples, blackberries, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in a large bowl. Toss well to combine, and spoon into prepared baking dish.

Make the topping: Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar. Mix in egg, milk and melted butter until just combined—if you overmix, the biscuit may get tough. A few patches of flour are fine.

Dot the filling with butter (if you feel so inclined—but it’s not necessary), spread the pudding on top with a rubber spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes—watch carefully to avoid overbrowning. And if you do overbrown it, you can always top it with confectioner’s sugar, like, um, some people might do.