This was such an exciting recipe to work on because it’s been a good 8-10 years since I’ve had a Newton cookie. Although I loved the Fig Newtons, I also loved the Apple Newtons and Strawberry Newtons. Today, I don’t even know if they still exist. Do they?
Anyway, I had to go off of memory for this one but once I tasted that first cookie, I knew I was close. Soooo close.
I started with Calimyrna Figs, you know, the lighter ones. And, although they were good, I didn’t like that the dough and the filling were almost the same color and the flavor wasn’t quite as bright as I wanted it to be. I wanted to bite into the cookie and have the fig flavor jump right out at you!
After reading a bunch of recipes, I realized that Fig Newtons also have an underlying flavor of orange. Well! I LOVE orange! And, I really love Cara Cara oranges and luckily, they’re in season right now. If you’ve not tried them yet, see if you can find them. They’re amazing!
I also wanted the dough to be firm, yet tender, like Fig Newtons are. There is one thing I remember doing though. I remember biting off the edges of the Newton so I had a cookie that was more fig than dough for the last bite. Anyone else do that?
That was my reasoning for making these in a baking dish rather than trying to make them into a flat log and cut them like so many others have done.
I didn’t ever like the dough on the edges of the cookies, so these don’t have edges. It’s fig, the whole way through!
A couple notes:
• After reading through numerous recipes, I came across a technique that worked perfectly for adding the top dough evenly and neatly to the fig layer. I froze the top layer for about 20 minutes so that I could gingerly place it on top of the fig and it wouldn’t disturb it at all.
• Feel free to use whatever variety of figs you like, just know that the Black Mission will likely be the most intense flavor.
• When you roll out the dough for the top, there will be some wasted dough. I didn’t want to make the top layer too thick so threw the extra away. If you want to, you can make some extra fig filling and try to make a fig log that, when cut into pieces, looks more like a typical Fig Newton.
• The dough will need to be rolled between two pieces of non-stick sprayed plastic wrap.
• Once you get the top layer cut to size (see directions), use a thin, sturdy cutting mat to carry it to the freezer and leave it on that to freeze firm.
[tasty-recipe id=”4939″]