Please Excuse the Interruption in the Blog Already in Place

I'll get to Hotlanta: The Final Adventure soon enough but I HAVE to first tell you about the torta di fichi or fig cake but it sounds a lot nicer in Italian, doesn't it? So, while in Italy I had THE MEAL TO END ALL MEALS, which I'll tell you about later but the end of it included this torta di fichi that I cannot get over. It appeared to be a very simple, rustic cake with figs baked on top but in reality it was the most meltingly, buttery, shortbread-like cake with luscious caramelized figs capping it off. Additionally, we ordered another Tuscan classic for dessert, biscotti with vin santo. I loved the vin santo and I loved the biscotti but I did not like them dipped in the wine, as is tradition. Instead, I dipped my biscotti in coffee and drank the vin santo with the fig cake. WOW. A new love was born. I got home late Tuesday evening from my European adventure but you better believe that on Wednesday I went out to buy figs and a bottle of vin santo. I tried my interpretation out yesterday and brought it to Tasty Tuesday for the girls to sample. They swooned, it was love for them too! Anyway, Maria said I MUST post the recipe immediately so here 'tis ladies!

Torta di Fichi (In Italian "chi" is a hard sound so this is pronounced fee-kee, not fee-chee)


1 pint figs
1/3 c. sugar
water
vin santo
lemon juice

Wash the figs thoroughly and remove stems. Coarsely chop, add sugar, water, lemon juice or vin santo and bring to a boil. Turn down immediately and simmer for 30 minutes or so. You can add more or less sugar, eliminate lemon juice or vin santo, it doesn't matter. This is really just cooking down the figs with some sugar to make a jam-like spread, it's hard to mess up unless you burn it. Don't make it too thick though, some of the moisture will bake out in the oven. Runny is a good consistency for this.

1 stick butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 t. salt
zest of one lemon

Cream the butter and sugar. Add egg, salt, zest and flour. Don't overbeat. Press into a 8 inch round cake pan.


I baked the crust for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees, then I took it out, spread the fig mixture on top and baked another 25 minutes. Next time, I'll add more liquid to the figs and then wait until the shell has cooked about 15 minutes before I add the figs to the cake. It came out a bit drier than I would have liked, although still really good.

Please drink this with a moderate glass of vin santo, it's amazing. Take a sip after each bite. DON'T pour a really big glass, it's strong and sweet. Enjoy!

Update: Just had the last piece (yeah, we kinda demolished it last night) with plain old coffee and it was tenderly, achingly delicious.