Pretty Fignomenal - Vanilla Pound Cake w/Fig Leaf Syrup + Cocktail
Fig Leaf Experiment - Reporting Back!
As the resident baker and preserver on the Portland Fruit Tree Project staff, I felt pretty seriously about trying out eating some fig leaves this year since we’ve talked about it a lot. Well, I’m here to report back.
Y’all. The smell of fig leaves dehydrating is ACTUALLY magical. It’s like the best coconut + almond smell ever.
So here’s how it went down. First, I found this lovely vintage recipe from the 50’s, originally from Better Homes and Gardens, preserved by Ilona Bakes. I was inspired to find this type of recipe after watching a great video on the Black Forager’s social media - if you haven’t checked her out, definitely do!
I started out planning to follow the recipe, so I got my 5ish fig leaves (and immediately got the latex on me and broke out - watch out for that stuff!) and popped them into the dehydrator since that was more foolproof than remembering they were in the oven.
Fig leaves dehydrating - I wish you could smell this!
As they filled the house with magic odors, I decided to just grind those up and put them in sugar and start over just making the syrup from fresh leaves. Heads up, the leaves smell less yummy this way, so don’t be disappointed!
About 50% sugar, 50% fig leaves - every day it is more fragrant and tasty!
Syrup cooking
The cake cake together like a breeze - I’m doing this again tomorrow and I am going to use my dehydrated leaf sugar inside the cake to ramp up the fig flavor. Otherwise, no notes on the recipe. It’s gold.
When the cake is cool, you feed it with the syrup - I used about half of my two cups that way.
What to do with the remainder? Obviously the answer is a cocktail. I went really easy and just did 1oz of fig leaf syrup, 1oz of vodka, and a squeeze of lime juice and it was delightful. You could bump up the vodka to make it less sweet for sure. Alas, we drank it too fast to take pictures…
For serving, I used my fig leaf sugar to make whipped cream, which was both delicious and really pretty!
Need fig leaves? Look around and you’re likely sharing a block with at least one tree, but worst case, check out the Sabin Community Orchard - there are a handful of trees there with LOTS of leaves.
Happy baking and experimenting!