Many, many years ago my husband was at a camping event when he caught two friends of his heating a can of (insert brand name) beef stew over a tiki torch. This was intended to be their dinner. This was not to be borne with. He and a friend of his started preparing elaborate, multi-course dinners for their friends at this event. Some of the courses left a little to be desired from a safety perspective - maybe flambeed dishes and styrofoam cups are not the best combination - but they were all delicious and the stuff of legend. Eventually the friend married a woman who was not interested in these little trips. Fortunately for the people who had come to rely on these dinners for their meal plan, Fearless Grill started dating (and eventually married) me which meant that the meals could continue. Initially they were entirely his affair - I had almost nothing to do with them at all. (This has changed.) My first contribution to the great feast was a dessert. It was very simple. It consisted of almonds and chocolate ground together, mixed with sugar and stuffed into a specific dried fruit.
Recently the time came to make the muffins. I was feeling a little wild and crazy and I thought it might be fun to make the muffins in memory of the dessert I made all those years ago. It helped that I had an open bag of dried figs. In my mind, that dessert was made with figs. I chopped up the figs, chopped up some almonds, used some dark chocolate chips and mixed them into the basic muffin mix. It worked. It worked very well. The muffins were delicious. I was still disappointed though - my husband was in no way, shape or form reminded of the dessert I first made for that event up in Maine all those years ago. Then I figured out why. That dessert was made with apricots. It should, however, have been made with figs.
Fig, Chocolate and Almond Muffins (serves 12; approx. $0.38/serving)
7 tablespoon butter
3/4 cups raw sugar
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
4 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 ounces almonds, well chopped
2 ounces dark chocolate chips
1 cup chopped dried figs
Equipment:
- Cooking spray
- Muffin tin liners
- Stand mixer with paddle attachment
- Ice cream scoop
- Rubber spatula
- Preheat your oven to 375︒.
- Prepare your pans. I've been lining the pans with the liners and spraying the liners.
- Cream together the butter and sugar in your stand mixer.
- Add the eggs to the mixture one at a time. I like to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl in between additions.
- Combine the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt.
- Add the dry ingredients to the mixer in thirds, alternating with 1/2 of the buttermilk and vanilla. You should start and end with dry ingredients.
- Fold in the figs, chocolate chips and almonds.
- Use the ice cream scoop to portion out the batter evenly between the muffin tin cups.
- Bake 20 - 25 minutes. A tester should come out clean.
- Serve.
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