FIG SYRUP

There are many, many fig trees growing wild all around my village and at the bottom of my garden there is a large old ‘black’ (purple fruit) fig tree.  It is like an old friend, every year it can be trusted to produce much fruit.  The figs are ripe now and we just help ourselves to them, eating the fruit whenever we pass by the tree but there are always too many fruit to eat all at once.  When I was a child my mother would simply bake the figs to preserve them for winter  also she made a delicious sweet fig syrup that I like to make to use in many of my cake recipes and the syrup can also be used to drizzle over deserts.

To dry figs

Collect as many as you want to dry, you can use the ones that have just fallen onto the ground, wash them gently and pat them dry with a cloth.  Bake them for about 15 minutes at 180 and let them cool slowly.

My mothers recipe for syrup using dried figs

Ingredients

7 kilos figs *steeped overnight in water, enough to cover them
1 heaped tablespoon of sugar (brown is best)

Large pinch of cinnamon

Preparation

• Remove the figs and put them to the side, put the water  into a large pan and top up until the pan is 2/3 full
• Sprinkle over with cinnamon and add half the figs.
• Bring the figs to the boil (the figs will turn very soft – when this happens remove the figs) and add the remaining uncooked figs and repeat, bring them to the boil, and remove. 
• Boil the syrup until it becomes thick, remember to stir well