Homemade Fig Newtons Or Fig Rolls
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YES, it’s that fabulous time of year when we’re baking along with the GBBO! Join the GBBO Bake-Along as we make Fig Rolls for Biscuit week. Essentially fig paste wrapped in biscuit dough, cut and baked, seems easy enough, right?
I’ve translated, as best I can, the GBBO Fig Rolls recipe from weights to American Measurements for this post. Remember to loosen your flour before measuring! Just run a spoon through it before scooping it into your measuring cup.
On Your Marks, Get Set, BAKE!
We’re working a week behind the airing of the show because I wanted to give everyone time to watch before we tell them all about it with our bakes. This week we’re on Biscuit Week and the technical challenge for Biscuit Week was Paul Hollywood’s Fig Rolls. Oof!
I’m saying OOF in a nice way, these are tasty fresh fig rolls. They take a bit of work, there’s a dough to make and chill. But that comes together pretty quickly in your mixer. I like using the mixer to make the dough, the job was was quick and easy.
And it’s different than how I usually make a shortcrust or pie dough even. I like to use my food processor for these kinds of dough, so the mixer was a nice change! Fewer parts to clean…
The filling also needs to be made and chilled. It’s straight forward enough though you quickly soak dried figs in boiling water on the stovetop with a little sugar. Pulse them with ginger and cinnamon and let that chill as well.
On the subject of the filling. I made F I V E batches of these today. Not once was I able to fit the entire amount of filling in the rolls. I had some leftover every single time. It’s not a big deal though I just saved it for spreading on toast!
Let’s talk about that ginger though. The recipe calls for stem ginger. I made some, especially for THIS recipe. It wasn’t hard, just time-consuming. A couple of substitutions for stem ginger would be something like this ginger paste. OR finely diced candied ginger.
I think 1-2 teaspoons of EITHER of those would be a fine substitution for the stem ginger. Probably even just ground ginger powder would work. Don’t add too much you don’t want to make these too hot.
One more tip about the sugar. Pauls recipe calls for muscovado sugar. My stores didn’t have it so I simply used brown sugar. If you have it you can use it, but brown sugar works just fine.
Are Fig Rolls Just Homemade Fig Bars?
I would say yes and no. YES because they are essentially what fig bars WANT to be. And no because they are WAY better than fig bars ever thought of being.
Fig Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour sift it first
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 1/2 TBSP softened butter
- 5 TBSP brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 cups dried figs not packed full-just fill the cups a few parts of the figs make stick over the tops and thats ok
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon I cut this for my fig rolls to 1/2 teaspoon
- 1 ball stem ginger this is about 1-2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger
Instructions
- mix the flour, salt, and baking powder, and set aside
- put the butter and the 3 TBSP sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together until pale and fluffy
- add the vanilla and the egg, beat again
- slowly add the flour mix ON LOW, mix until well incorporated
- pat out the small rectangle, wrap and chill for 30 minutes
- chop the figs, put them in a pan that just holds them all in a single layer
- add water to cover
- stir in the 2 TBSP sugar
- bring to a quick boil, reduce heat, and let simmer about 10 minutes or until the figs are softened
- put the figs in the bowl of a food processor, do not add water, and pulse to chop, if they are too thick drizzle in a little of the cooking water
- add the cinnamon and ginger and puree
- spread on plate and chill
- when the dough has chilled long enough pre-heat the oven to 395˚
- on a lightly floured baking pan roll out an 8×10 rectangle of dough
- cut in half lengthwise
- lay half the fig paste down the middle of the dough lengthwise
- wet the long edge of each piece of dough, then roll each piece up and over the fig paste and over the other side of the crust completely encasing the fig paste
- run a fork down the dough to slightly flatten the roll and leave decorative lines
- cut each log in 6 pieces
- bake 10-12 minutes in the pre-heated oven
Notes
Nutrition
- Sausage Rolls
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- Pain Aux Raisins
- Garibaldi Biscuits
My wife and I have watched all the episodes that are available on Netflix. We’re disappointed that the current season is limited to one episode a week.
We find Paul to be a bit pompous. During one show-stopper challenge that called for the contestants to make an American pie. He said to one of the contestants that “to make a proper American pie, you practically have to make it a British pie.”
I tried this recipe but all I ended up with was a crumbly dough that couldn’t stick together. Any suggestions?
Hmmm Not sure? It’s possible that your flour was too packed in the cup. I recommend lightening the flour by scooping it through a slotted spoon.
Just made these and they are delicious! Thank you for converting the recipe!
I just made these for the first time and really liked weighing the ingredients they way they do there. They are really huge, though. Has anyone tried making them smaller, and what did you do?
I’ve always just made them big.