These fig cookies are a new recipe for this year, but quickly proved to be a favorite and future stand by.
A tasty butter dough is folded over a filling of dried figs, oranges, and walnuts to create a log, then sliced diagonally and baked.
I got the recipe from A Taste of Home, a recipe magazine from my mother-in-law.
The dough originally called for Crisco instead of butter, but here is the recipe with butter. I try to find recipes without Crisco because substituting with butter often changes the way the cookies result. This recipe, however, claimed to be an old Italian recipe, so i was hopeful that butter would work because the original most likely used butter. After a side by side test of butter and Crisco in the dough, I concluded that butter was better. The cookie part tasted better with butter (it was bland with Crisco) and the finished cookie held it's shape well.
So, here's the recipe:
filling:
2 cups raisins
3/4 lb. pitted dates
3/4 cup sugar
2 small navel oranges, peeled and quartered
1/3 lb. dried figs
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
(if too thick, add up to 1/4 cup water)
Process in food processor until finely chopped. Set aside.
dough:
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, milk, vanilla. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda gradually. The dough will be very thin and you'll have to use a fork to handle it. Divide into four pieces, cover and refrigerate an hour or more.
When ready to assemble and bake cookies, take dough out to soften slightly. Roll between two pieces of parchment paper into a thin rectangle 16" X 6". Remove top parchment to spread 1/4 of filling mixture down center of dough. Using lower parchment, fold one side of dough over the mixture. then fold the other side to overlap. use fingers to pinch and seal all edges. Cut diagonally into 3/4" slices. Place seam side down on parchment paper.
Bake at 400 F for 10-14 min until edges are golden. Cool for 10 min before removing from pans to cool completely.
Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp. milk
Combine, adjusting ingredients to get a thin glaze. Drizzle over cookies.
