Taste and see...

Taste and see that the Lord is good. -- Psalm 34:8

Happy Saturday my friends!  Sorry I’ve been AWOL lately…life has been busy, busy, busy!  Last weekend, I did quite a bit of cooking, but didn’t have time to tell you about it.  I’ll try to catch up a bit this weekend.

A potluck luncheon (or “covered dish” as we like to call it here in South Texas) at church last Sunday prompted me to search out some new recipes to try.  Thankfully, most of them were pretty successful.

First, I did a Fig Cake, which gave me an opportunity to use up some of last year’s fig preserves.  It turned out delicious!!!  If you have any extra fig preserves laying around, you really should try it.

I got the recipe from the “Bountiful Blessings Cookbook” - © 1998 by Barbour Publishing, Inc.  Apparently it was also previously released under the title, “Homegrown Heaven Bound Cookbook.”  This is a fun book of “favorite old-fashioned, down-home, family-tested recipes” submitted by members of a large Christian book club.  The “Fig Cake” recipe was submitted by Virginia Lear, from London, KY, and may be found on p. 247 if you happen to come across this treasure.

As usual, I’ll give you my version of the recipe…

 Don'tcha want to try a piece?

Faithy’s Fig Treasure Cake

1-1/3 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup whole wheat flour (or 2 cups all-purpose flour if you don’t have whole wheat)

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon cloves (I NEVER use as much cloves as recipes call for, because they have a tendency to be overpowering - the original recipe called for ½ tsp.)

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup Smart Sugar (the original recipe called for 1-1/2 cups sugar…you can divide it up however suits you!)

¾ cup HEB Real Egg (or 3 eggs, beaten)

1 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup fig preserves

1 cup chopped pecans (I actually only used about ½ cup because I’m running low)

Preheat oven to 325° F.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda and cloves.  Set aside.

Cream together sugar and eggs (1 at a time if you’re using regular eggs).  Add oil and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly.

Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, alternately with buttermilk.  Stir in preserves and pecans.  Mix well.

Pour into a greased (I sprayed mine with cooking spray) Bundt pan and bake for 1 hour.

Cool (if you can wait that long to try it!), slice and serve with whipped cream or plain.

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The original recipe listed the buttermilk in the ingredients list, but then never mentioned it again.  LOL!  Not to worry, I’ve baked before, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out a good place to add it.

It smelled so good while it was baking that I just couldn’t stand it.  My husband and I had to sample a couple of slices - just to make sure they were good enough to serve at church! J  Also needed to show the inside for the blog picture. 

Hee, hee…that’s me, always willing to make a sacrifice for the good of someone else.

I’m thinking this recipe would be good with other types of preserves too…I’m thinking peach preserves off the top of my head.  Mmmm…maybe we’ll try that next time I end up with some fresh peaches to make preserves with!

If you have a chance to experiment with it let me know!!

I'll try to get back online this weekend and post my other potluck experiments.
 Hope your weekend is filled with blessings,

--Faithy