Some of my favorite recipes have been developed on the fly. Combine a little of this with a little of that and often the result is something quite delicious. That’s what happened when I made these Butterscotch Figgy Bites. I usually don’t keep desserts in the house unless we’re having company, but Jon was in the mood for something sweet. So I stared at the pantry shelves for a minute until some promising ingredients revealed themselves to me: figs, butterscotch chips, and bran cereal flakes. I never combined figs with butterscotch before but somehow I thought their flavors would be wonderful match. And they really are.
Into the food processor went about 1 1/2 cups of figs (just cut off the hard tips). The first time I made these I used kalmyra, this time I used mission. The figs should be dried (as opposed to fresh) but moist, not all dried out. To the figs I added about 1/2 to 3/4 cup vegan butterscotch chips (the Food Lion store brand is vegan, although there may be other vegan brands available). To hold it all together I added about 3/4 to 1 cup of ready-to-eat bran cereal flakes. I processed the ingredients until everything was well chopped and would hold together when pressed.
When I made these the first time, I pressed the mixture into an 8-inch baking pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. For this batch, I pressed them into a mini muffin tin (also sprayed with cooking spray). They could actually be eaten as is but I think the flavor is better if you bake them for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees. The baking lets the butterscotch chips melt a bit and allows the flavors to combine.
For only containing three ingredients, these little bites are extremely rich-tasting with a great depth of flavor. If you can’t find butterscotch chips, they might be good made with chocolate chips, but I haven’t tested out that theory yet. If you try them (with either butterscotch or chocolate chips), let me know what you think.
P.S. Yes, that’s a glimpse of this year’s lilacs in the photo. They bloomed a full month earlier than usual and are now almost gone, when normally they’d just be starting to bloom!
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Hi Robin,
I’m a big fan 🙂 …anyway, I made these this morning and used dates because I didn’t have any figs. They are delicious. I never would have thought to do this. I cooked mine for 15 minutes and they are full of crunchy goodness that I enjoyed with my french press coffee. I will definitely make these again. I think I’ll go with 10 minutes so they have a lil’ more chew to them. So good and thanks for sharing this!
Good to know these work well with dates, too! I think any soft dried fruit would be good. The less baking time, the softer they’ll be — I just bake mine long enough to melt the butterscotch chips.