When life gives you a friend who gives you free reign on picking figs from her back yard, you make fig jam.  After making kumquat marmalade, I figured that fig jam would be easy schmeezy, and it was. It doesn’t even require an extra step of extracting pectin from the fruit.

Figs are strange fruits that look like alien mouths when you cut them open, but they’re so good when they’re perfectly ripe.

I enjoyed the jam on top of plain yogurt. Will enjoyed it in a nut butter and jam sandwich.

Fig Jam Recipe

• 5 lbs fresh, quartered figs
• ~5 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 cup Cointreau
• 1/2 cup Benedictine
• Juice of 1.5 lemons
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 5 slices of ginger and 5 pods of cardamon (could be left out b/c the liquor is already pretty spiced)

The jam was as easy as de-stemming the figs, quartering them, adding sugar, a pinch of salt, the booze, letting them sit for a little more than an hour, then cooking it down till it’s jammy.  The harder part, which I left for Will was canning them so there’s no chance of botulism.