DRY FIG COOKIES – Recipe by Piero Benigni & Mama’s Italian cooking – Fragrant and delicious, they are both a perfect snack and an after-meal dessert. Can be easily prepared in 50 minutes.
Ingredients for about 35 cookies (750 g or 26 oz)
- 200 gfigs (dry figs, 7 oz)
- 70 galmonds (peeled, 2 1/2 oz)
- 80 gsugar (2 1/2 oz)
- 100 gseed oil (corn or sunflower oil, 3 1/4 oz)
- 2eggs
- 1 pinchsalt
- 16 gbaking powder (1/2 oz or a tsp)
- 300 gflour (11 oz, approximate weight)
- 2 spoonsrum (or other liquor)
- 2 spoonsicing sugar
Tools for dry fig cookies
- Oven
- Chopping Board
- Knife
- Baking Tray
- Baking paper
- Bowl or stand mixer
- Scale
- Kitchen Robot for almonds
Remove stalk from dry figs, chop with a large knife on chopping board. Put in a bowl and pour 2 tbsp of rum or whisky or similar dry liquor. Let stay for 15 or more minutes, stir 2 or 3 times. Coarsely chop almonds with large knife on chopping board or with mixer. If using mixer, chop one ounce at a time and stop when there are no more whole almonds.
WITH THE STAND MIXER
Put eggs and sugar in the stand mixer bowl and mix 1 minute at speed 3. Add oil (corn or sunflower or other), a pinch of salt, grate zest of an organic orange, add 200 g (7 oz) of flour and 16 g (1/2 oz) or a heaping tsp of baking powder. Mix for 1 minute at speed 2, add chopped figs and almonds. Start adding more flour, one tbsp at a time, until dough is thick and no more sticking to fingers.
MIXING IN A BOWL
Put eggs and sugar in the bowl and mix quickly by hand or with electric whip. Add ingredients as said above, mix until possible then continue an the pastry board until dough is thick and no more sticking to fingers.
Spread 2 tbsp of icing sugar on a dish. Take dough with 1 or 2 teaspoons, form a small ball, drop on sugar. Try to make balls the same size, ok if you get around 40 of them. Put baking paper on baking pan. Grease palms with some drops oil, take a ball at a time, roll on sugar, put between palms and roll until stiff and round. Hit it giving the form of a pat and put on paper. Try to make them all the same thickness.
Put in not air-assisted oven at 180 °C (340 °F), heat above and below, position halfway up. Bake for 16-20 minutes or until light brown, surface is cracked as in photo and quite resistant if crushed. Turn off oven and let cookies cool down for 30 minutes in the oven with door ajar. These cookies last several days under a cake bell. I suggest not to freeze them.