Fig and Salted Caramel Blondies

Before making these spectacularly chewy, sweet and salty blondies I had NEVER EVER eaten figs. To me they looked a little strange and more like they were for decoration rather than something you could actually eat, and more to the point, enjoy. I saw figs on Aldi's super six (world's biggest fan of super six right here) and bought them. Then I wracked my brain for something to bake with them. These salted caramel laced fig blondies were the product of said brain racking. I like to think of baking brain wracking as getting back into some sort of intelligent thinking state for the coming semester. Really it's just a really great way to make my tummy happy. My tummy was terribly happy polishing these off for pudding. mmmmmm

Look at those fig seeds in the photo above!

If you wanted to you could use more figs and less sugar, for healthier blondies as figs are naturally quite sweet. I haven't tried this though so I couldn't tell you if they are still as deliciously chewy and moist with a lower sugar content.  If you wanted more luxurious blondies you could drizzle them in salted caramel, Hannah and I did this much to our enjoyment. You could also serve them to friends and family for dessert with ice cream or custard. Eeeesh I can promise you they would thank you.

I don't really have much else to say about these fig and salted caramel blondies other than they are de-li-cious and I wholeheartedly recommend you shove them in your mouths pronto because if you aren't blondie shoving you are missing out BIG TIME.
SO chewy
SO moist
SO figgy (that's a good thing)

I would like to share some other photos with you though! Hannah and I went to Capstan's Bazaar, a little thing in a warehouse where independent sellers have stalls selling vintage stuff and crafts and knick-knacks and the like. They had some beautiful glass bottles, my food prop radar was on red alert. And the fresh homegrown produce oh my...

And the prettiest picture of them all.. back to the fig and salted caramel blondies..

Does my .gif tempt you? Are you hungry?

Here is the recipe...

You know what to do...

Ingredients

100 g dark brown soft sugar
100 g white granulated sugar
100 g butter
1 medium free-range egg
150 g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
4 figs, each chopped into 1/8ths
approx. 8 tsp salted caramel (scroll straight down for the recipe)

Directions

1. Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C and grease and line a 9" x 4.5" loaf tin (or a 8" square tin if you prefer thinner blondies, remember to reduce the baking time if you use a bigger tin)
2. Add the sugar and butter to a large mixing bowl and cream together until you have a smooth mixture the colour of milky coffee then beat in the egg.
3. Sift in the flour and mix until incorporated then stir in the vanilla bean paste.
4. Cut each fig into 8 pieces then fold them into the blondie mixture. Spoon this mixture (it should be quite thick) into the pre lined baking ban. Spoon out the salted caramel 1/4 tsp at a time and place about 16 pieces on top of the batter at regular intervals. Use the end of a wooden spoon to push these pieces of caramel about half way down into the mixture. Repeat with the remaining salted caramel leaving it on the top of the mixture this time.
5. Bake for 45 - 50 minutes until a skewer comes out with a little bit of cake mixture on it. The blondies will continue to cook in their pan out of the oven and once cooled will be perfectly chewy and moist. If you are using a larger square baking pan 25 to 30 minutes baking time should be sufficient.
6. Leave the blondies to cool in the tin for about half an hour then remove them from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Cut the giant blondie into eight equal squares.
7. Serve, share, eat and ENJOY :)