Cheese-Stuffed, Chocolate-Coated Figs

Every week, baking expert Alice Medrich will be going rogue on Food52—with shortcuts, hacks, and game-changing recipes.

Today: A perfectly ripe fig doesn't need chocolate and cheese—but it sure wants it.

If you wrinkle your nose at the idea of eating a fig, I’m willing to bet you have never tasted a properly ripe one. Fig phobics usually don’t know that a ripe fig is very soft— even squishy! Often the most delicious figs are even beginning to shrivel and ooze sweet juice; they may not (under the circumstances) be the prettiest figs in the bowl.

Figs have two seasons but fig lovers know that fall figs are more flavorful than spring figs. So here we are!

Does a really good ripe fig need cheese and chocolate? Nope. But who could resist a sweet, sexy fruit coated with crisp dark chocolate and stuffed with a secret creamy filling? And if these tempt you into enjoying a fig, I will have done my job!  

Add stuffed figs to a cheese platter or serve them for dessert. Either way, consider an oloroso sherry or aged tawny port to go with.  For stuffing the figs, everyday cream cheese is delicious and obvious—but more interesting and decadent cheeses really do shine here. 

Cheese-Stuffed Figs Dipped in Chocolate

Excepted from Seriously Bittersweet (Artisan 2013)

Makes 20 dipped figs

20 ripe figs
1/4 cup (60 grams) soft creamy cheese such as ordinary cream cheese, fresh ricotta, mascarpone, or even a triple cream cheese such as Mt. Tam or Brillat-Savarin
5 ounces (140 grams) dark chocolate (any percentage*), chopped
1/3 cup (45 grams) chopped toasted almonds or walnuts

* I usually choose a 62% or 70% chocolate for these. 

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photos by Alpha Smoot