Beetle Newtons

THE OLD SCHOOL BAKING KICK CONTINUES

After the Beetle-O's of two weeks ago, I'm trying to think of what else I ate in potentially lethal amounts as a kid that I could reimagine as a relatively less-unhealthy, mature, poised, adult baked good.

Problem is that I wasn't allowed that much junk food. Or, any, really. I was the kid who had Soy Milk juiceboxes. I was the kid who had organic crunchy peanut butter on crusty french bread. I was the kid who begged for Fruit Rollups because all the cool kids would punch out and share the little shapey things (remember those?), and you were only cool if you could trade shapey things with the other cool kids at your lunch table (though let's face it, I definitely wasn't sitting at the cool kids lunch table). I begged for them. I got Fruit Leathers instead. Organic, leathery, ugly, definitely not capable of holding shapes of skateboarders or Snoopy or whatever it was at the time. Nobody wanted to trade with me. I ate them alone.

Once there was a school bake sale and you were supposed to bring money in and buy cookies for a quarter or whatever, and Mum gave me money folded in a napkin in my lunchbox (I DID have a Batman lunchbox, that was her nod to popular culture. Barbie = The Devil. Batman = Cool.) Except when I opened it I realised it was British money because she'd grabbed it from the wrong change jar and instead of quarters and dimes I had pounds and a 50 pence piece. And they wouldn't take it at the bake sale. I think eventually someone gave me a pity cookie after everything else had been sold.

Really, it's remarkable I survived past the sixth grade.

ANYWAY. Fig Newtons are definitely on the "comfort food from Beetle's childhood" list. And Mum likes Figs. So. Long story short.

BEETLE NEWTONS

I found this one on the webs after a surprisingly exhaustive search. For real, I expected the internet to be a FONT of Fig Newton recipes. I figured the mommy blogs would have completely cornered the Newton market. You know: whole grain, gluten free, nut free, dairy free, sugar/preservative/animal byproduct/you-name-it free, fair trade figs, locally grown in your rooftop garden figs, fig alternatives because DID YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS FIGS CAN BE FOR A DEVELOPING CHILD'S BRAIN??? etc etc etc. But google turned up more Date-Newtons than Fig, and even Martha Stewart didn't have one, which seemed like it would be straight up her alley. I eventually found this one at food52.com and it seemed relatively healthy and normal and devised by someone who wanted something tasty and fig based but who still had one food firmly planted in culinary reality.

BEETLE NEWTONS

INGREDIENTS
(I doubled the below and came up with about 40 Newtons)

• 1 1/2cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 10 tbs (1 1/4 sticks) butter, softened
• 2/3 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of one orange (or 1 tsp orange extract, which I used) 
• 1 pound dried figs, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup water

Beat the butter and brown sugar together in a mixmaster until fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla, and orange zest/extract and beat on high a few minutes more. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl, and slowly add to the batter.

Put the chopped figs and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil, stirring frequently, until the water is absorbed and the figs are very soft. Transfer to a food processor and (god, it's LOUD) pulse until you have a really thick, figgy paste. 

Pre insanely loud food processor. (for real, the cats HATE ME RIGHT NOW.)

The aforementioned "thick, figgy paste."

Divide the dough into 4 sections. Rolling out one at a time, shape each section into a rectangle about 4 inches wide by 12 inches long. Try to keep the edges as squared off as possible, smoosh it around with your fingers if you have to.

Using two spoons (or whatever makes your life easiest) spread 1/4 of the fig filling down the length of the rectangle, leaving a small margin of dough clear.

This is so that when you fold the dough over to pinch it you can pinch dough-on-dough. (see pictures)

At the end, you'll have a log of uncut Newtons with sort of a teardrop shape.

Like so. 

Transfer the log to a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough and the filling.

Bake the logs at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, give or take, until the edge of the end pieces are starting to go brown. When you take them out, slice them whilst they are still warm on the baking sheet. 

AND NOW FOR THE RANDOM PART OF THE DIRECTIONS. Immediately put the sliced Newtons into large Ziploc freezer bags, seal them, and let the bags rest and cool on wire racks. This, apparently, is so that the dough does not dry out as they cool. Let them cool completely before removing. 

I swear, this looks like something out of a crime show.
Or maybe that's just me and my TV habits.
I can't see anything through plastic without thinking of meat lockers and corpses . . . ?

NB: they are doing this as I type. I may have ruined them all. However, the reviews of the recipe seemed positive and not in any way to indicate that this was a really bad idea. For once in my life, I followed the instructions. We'll see. 

BEETLE NOTES

I have notes. I HAVE NOTES, YOU GUYS.

1. The whole "steaming" thing did not seem to have any adverse effects. So. That happened.

Stealth Raisins.
Also the name of a future cat.

2. These should be called "Fig and Raisin Newtons" because I only had 1/2 a pound of Figs I KNOW WHAT KIND OF A HUMAN BEING AM I THAT I ONLY HAVE 1/2 A POUND OF DRIED FIGS IN MY PANTRY ON A DAILY BASIS and so I made up the difference with raisins. I could have used dates, but in my brain raisins are closer to figs, so I went with those.

3. The biscuit dough has issues. It rolls and folds over fig paste and cuts like a DREAM but there are issues nonetheless. Taste issues. Specifically, a lack thereof. According to Mum, my long suffering taster, the dough is pretty firmly on the "bland" side of the field. I would very much like to make these again because they are easy and oh-so-pretty to look at it, but it's going to require some fiddling first.

There are 4 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 tsp of orange extract in there already. Maybe Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Ginger? Lemon or Almond extract? I don't think adding more sugar to the dough is the answer, making it sweeter won't solve the issue. But they definitely need "something" more. So. I will turn it over to the LL's for their input and take it back to the pastry board (ha! I'm funny) for deliberation.

In the meantime, to offset the blah, I've dusted them with powdered sugar. I think that everything, really, should be dusted with powdered sugar. It's pretty, it's fun to do, and I've yet to encounter a situation where a liberal sprinkling did NOT enhance the taste. So I thought maybe until I figure out the answer to the above dough question, it would serve as a stopgap.

A sugary, snowy stopgap.

There are worse things, I suppose.