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Tutti-Frutti Figs
8 large, dried figs 2 cups grapejuice 8 marshmallows, toasted 1/4 cup nut meats, chopped 4 sections of orange Soak dry figs in grapejuice over night, remove stem and open end with sharp knife. Insert marshmallow, nut meats and orange. Pinch the opening closed. Roll in sugar and chill well. Serves 4.
A no-bake stuffed fig, assembled cold and served as a dessert or a sweet on a fruit plate. The only real technique is the overnight soak, and everything else is filling and shaping.
- The soak is the whole recipeDried figs need the full overnight sit in grape juice to plump enough that a knife will open them without splitting the skin. Two cups covers eight figs in a narrow container; press a small plate on top if they float.
- Toast the marshmallows firstThe recipe calls for them already toasted, which colours and slightly crusts the surface. A broiler at high heat or a gas flame on a skewer both work; watch them, they colour in seconds.
- Figs to buyCalimyrna or Smyrna figs are large and pale and split cleanly; Black Mission figs are smaller and you may want ten or twelve. Look for figs that are still pliable rather than hard.
- Orange sectionsFour sections for eight figs means half a section each, cut crosswise. Peel the membrane off if you want the filling smooth, or substitute canned mandarin segments.
- Rolling in sugarNo quantity or type is given; granulated sugar in a shallow dish is the likeliest reading. The figs must be damp from the juice for it to cling, so roll them before chilling, not after.
- The leftover grape juiceThe soaking liquid picks up flavour and sweetness from the figs. If you like, reduce it briefly and spoon it around the figs on the plate rather than discarding it.
- Yield and servingTwo figs per person, four servings. Keep them covered in the refrigerator and serve cold; they are best eaten soon after assembling.
Tutti-frutti is Italian for "all fruits," borrowed into American English in the nineteenth century for anything mixed and candied, and by the early twentieth century used loosely for confections combining several fruits and nuts. The recipe fits a period when commercial marshmallows had become a cheap pantry staple and bottled grape juice was widely sold, often promoted as a temperance drink; no-oven desserts built from both are common in menu books of the time. The stuffed dried fig itself is much older and thoroughly Mediterranean, usually filled with a nut and sometimes with candied peel; the marshmallow is the American addition.