Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup heavy (whipping) cream
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh peppermint leaves
- 6 ounces quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 12 ripe fresh figs, quartered
- 3/4 cup fresh raspberries
- 1/3 cup slivered or sliced almonds, toasted
- 6 to 8 small peppermint sprigs, for garnish
Preparation:
Combine cream and chopped mint in saucepan, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, cover, and allow mint to steep for 5 minutes.
Place chocolate in a bowl and set a strainer over it. When the cream has steeped, pour it through the strainer, pressing gently on the mint to extract all the cream. Discard mint. Gently stir cream-and-chocolate mixture until it is perfectly smooth and chocolate is melted. Let cool just until the consistency of a thick sauce.
Spoon about 2 tablespoons of sauce into 6 to 8 individual bowls. Scatter figs and raspberries over sauce. Drizzle remaining sauce over fruit. Sprinkle with toasted almonds, garnish with mint sprigs, and serve.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Note: You can cool the ganache completely and rewarm it very gently in its pan, set over another pan of barely simmering water.
Stuffed Fig Variation: Cut figs into halves instead of quarters. Cool the ganache to a soft, spreadable consistency. Spread a mound of the ganache on the cut surface of each fig and sprinkle with toasted almonds.
Recipe Source: Smith & Hawken's Gardeners' Community Cookbook by Victoria Wise (Workman Publishing)
Reprinted with permission.
Place chocolate in a bowl and set a strainer over it. When the cream has steeped, pour it through the strainer, pressing gently on the mint to extract all the cream. Discard mint. Gently stir cream-and-chocolate mixture until it is perfectly smooth and chocolate is melted. Let cool just until the consistency of a thick sauce.
Spoon about 2 tablespoons of sauce into 6 to 8 individual bowls. Scatter figs and raspberries over sauce. Drizzle remaining sauce over fruit. Sprinkle with toasted almonds, garnish with mint sprigs, and serve.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Note: You can cool the ganache completely and rewarm it very gently in its pan, set over another pan of barely simmering water.
Stuffed Fig Variation: Cut figs into halves instead of quarters. Cool the ganache to a soft, spreadable consistency. Spread a mound of the ganache on the cut surface of each fig and sprinkle with toasted almonds.
Recipe Source: Smith & Hawken's Gardeners' Community Cookbook by Victoria Wise (Workman Publishing)
Reprinted with permission.
