stacked. [fig & gingered mascarpone napoleons]

September 8th, 2011 by | comments

I spent last weekend at home with my family, as I hadn’t seen them in a while. We relaxed, watched football, drank wine and of course, cooked. Since my brother, Andy, was visiting home from Atlanta, we joined forces in the kitchen.

As usual, Andy was in charge of dinner and I was in charge of dessert. We purchased black figs at Whole Foods, without any idea of what we wanted to make with them. But alas, Andy found this light, yet decadent dessert recipe.

The gingered mascarpone filling and confectioner’s sugar were the perfect contrast to the black figs, since they’re not as sweet as other fig types. Serve the napoleons chilled or at room temperature.

Recipe:

1 frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry sheet (from a 17 1/4-oz package), thawed

26 firm-ripe fresh black figs

1 cup mascarpone cheese

1 tbsp. finely chopped crystallized ginger

2 1/2 tbsp. sugar

3/4 tsp. vanilla

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out pastry with a floured rolling pin on a lightly floured surface into a 15- by 12-inch rectangle (3/4 inch thick) and trim edges. Halve pastry lengthwise with a pastry wheel or large knife to form 2 (15- by 6-inch) strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 7 equal rectangles (for a total of 14). Arrange rectangles in 1 layer on 2 large baking sheets and chill 20 minutes.

While pastry is chilling, trim and chop 4 figs and stir together with mascarpone, ginger, sugar, and vanilla. Chill filling, covered.

Cover pastry rectangles on 1 baking sheet with an inverted large metal cooling rack to lightly weight them, then bake in upper third of oven until golden and cooked through, 10-15 minutes. Remove rack carefully and transfer baked pastry to another rack to cool completely. Bake remaining rectangles, weighted with rack (make sure it’s cooled), in same manner.

While pastry is baking, cut remaining figs lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

Spread filling over 7 pastry rectangles and top with half of sliced figs, overlapping them. Dust with confectioner’s sugar. Cover figs with remaining pastry rectangles and top with remaining figs, overlapping them. Dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Recipe adapted from Epicurious.

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