First, the figs. Years ago, my col­league and friend, Stephen McCauley, asked me to bring him back fresh figs from a shop­ping adven­ture in Flo­rence, Italy. At the time, he worked for the PR firm Porter Nov­el­li and was in charge of the meet­ing I was attend­ing. The month was Feb­ru­ary, not exact­ly fresh fig sea­son. So I bought him dried instead. (No need to elab­o­rate on the ben­e­fits of dried fruit for old­er adults!) Every year since — prob­a­bly 10 years by now — I look for a fig treat for Stephen.

Next, the fats. Ear­li­er this year, I attend­ed a par­tial­ly spon­sored con­fer­ence in Lon­don, coor­di­nat­ed by Stephen’s Gin­ger Net­work. We heard sev­er­al pre­sen­ta­tions on fat, includ­ing dairy fat, soy­bean oil (from soy­beans farmed by farmer Nan­cy Kavazan­jian), and trans fat-free mar­garine. It turns out the “indus­tri­al” trans fats may be the most harm­ful, and that oth­ers, includ­ing dairy fat, may be okay, even for old­er adults.

Last, the financiers. Stephen spot­ted a NY Times recipe for fig financiers and sent it my way (to moti­vate me to bake him some­thing?). The recipe calls for browned but­ter. I won­dered — what if I make them with but­ter and again with the high ole­ic soy­bean oil sent to me by Nan­cy to play with. So that’s what I did. Chang­ing the recipe to use dried figs instead of fresh and ground almonds rather than hazel­nuts, I made one batch with browned but­ter and one with soy­bean oil com­bine with a bit of sesame oil for its toasty fla­vor. The results were sur­pris­ing.

Eric and I tast­ed the financiers side by side. The browned but­ter financiers tast­ed like, well, browned but­ter. Not like figs and not like almonds. The soy­bean oil financiers were much more nuanced. With­out the dis­trac­tion of the but­ter fla­vor, the fig and almond fla­vors popped. Our only com­plaint — the ones made with oil did­n’t brown as well.

These are real­ly easy and real­ly ele­gant, no mat­ter which fat you use. For guests, I might driz­zle them with liqueur and/or serve them along­side fruit sor­bet.

Stephen’s Fig Financiers

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalt­ed but­ter or 6 table­spoons soy­bean or veg­etable oil plus 2 table­spoons sesame oil

155 grams (1 1/4 cups) pow­dered sug­ar

56 grams (1/2 cup) fine­ly ground almonds

40 grams (1/3 cup) all pur­pose flour

Pinch of salt

4 large egg whites

1 tea­spoon vanil­la extract

8 dried Cal­imyr­na figs, cut cross­wise into thirds (I also used Mis­sion but they’re not as pret­ty)

Direc­tions

  1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 24-cup mini-muf­fin pan with cook­ing spray.
  2. If using but­ter, place in a small saucepan over low-medi­um heat and cook until light brown, about 5 min­utes. Pour into a heat­proof bowl, leav­ing behind the browned milk solids on the bot­tom of the pan, and set aside to cool.
  3. Whisk togeth­er sug­ar, almonds, flour, and salt in a medi­um bowl. Add the egg whites and beat with an elec­tric mix­er on low speed for one minute. Add the but­ter or oils and beat on medi­um-high speed for 2 min­utes, until smooth and creamy. Stir in the vanil­la.
  4. Pour the bat­ter into the muf­fin pan, fill­ing each cup approx­i­mate­ly 2/3 full. Top each with a fig slice. Bake for about 13 min­utes, until light­ly browned. The top should bounce back when light­ly touched.
  5. Cool in the pan before care­ful­ly remov­ing with a table­spoon.