Baked figs

I'd never actually eaten a fig before I bought these. I'd heard all about them of course. I'd even seen them growing near roadsides while driving through California, but this was the first time to try cooking them. They are incredibly good. In the UK, I remember them as fig rolls, which I wouldn't touch. Neil remembers them more fondly, but then he enjoys anything wrapped in pastry and laced with lots of sugar.

I had plans to make some sort of fig tart I've seen a few times, usually in beautiful, glossy magazine pictures, with a butter laced flaky pasty and sticky jam or franzipan underneath. Instead, I simply baked them, cut in half to reveal the pretty pink and beige flesh and 'teeth' beneath the skin.

Sprinkled with sugar and baked in the oven for a very short time, they become soft, sweet and syrupy. Simply squeezed out of the skin, the flesh can be used as a thick sauce to be piled on top of vanilla ice cream or used as a base for a crumble. We simply popped it straight into our mouths, but only because there was no one else to watch us being so unrefined.

This isn't so much a recipe as a guide. 

Baked figs

10 figs
2 tbsp sugar
Just cut the figs in half, lay on a baking sheet, sprinkle with sugar, (brown might be nice) and bake for about 20 minutes at 375oF. You can eat the flesh straight from the skins or use however you wish, maybe with some ice cream or stirred into a cheesecake mixture.