Fresh Figs with Chocolate Sauce

We have fresh figs on the tree at the moment. And that gave me an idea. We’ve reviewed chocolate enrobed figs here before. How about fresh figs with something chocolatey?

There’s something about figs, summer time and fig trees – or more particularly, the aroma of the tree. Ours starts getting a distinctly figgy smell about a month before the fruit is ready – and you can smell it a good 10 or more metres away. This, of course, just gets the anticipation going. So today, we’re doing fresh figs with a chocolate sauce. This is dead easy, and takes all of about 10 minutes.

Ingredients

For this, I used (and you can scale up or down accordingly):

• 6 fresh figs (I used green figs but any kind will do)
• A dribble of balsamic vinegar
• About 25g of 70% dark chocolate (I used 2 squares from a 100g block of Lindt. Don’t use cooking chocolate or milk chocolate)
• 2 teaspoons thickened or double cream

Method

Cut the very tip off each fig where the stem was – you want to just tidy it up a little.

Make 2 cuts in the fig from top to bottom, in a cross shape, cutting almost all the way through – so you have 4 segments but they are joined at the bottom.

Push with the fingers (it’s a bit fiddly) on the 4 segments, pushing in and down, so the fig opens up at the top. The result should look a bit like this (even more open would be better – my figs were very ripe, making this quite difficult):

Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar through the centres of the figs. A little spilling out on the dish is fine – its just more yumminess to dab up later.

Break the chocolate up into smallish pieces, then melt it in a bowl or cup over some boiling water (I cheat and just fill a cup with boiling water, and sit another cup in the top). When the chocolate has about ½ melted, add 2 teaspoons of cream. Allow that to warm as well, and gradually stir and mix. This is your chocolate sauce – which is so delicious by itself that I amazed myself that any was left for the figs.

Spoon the sauce over the figs, making sure to get some down into cut centres. As you can see from my photo – its not pretty. The sauce is quite thick and its really hard to make arty, restaurenty swirly patterny thingies. Just spoon and dob it on so each fig has plenty. It’s chocolate we want here, not elegant looks!
Allow the chocolate cause to cool a little, and then eat as quickly as you can.

Verdict from the teenage son: Ohhh Om Nom Nom!!!

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