My blogging buddy Phyl runs BOM (Bread of the Month) on FB and so far I haven't joined in even though the selections each month sound very good. One just has so much time. I've been in a bread making slump most of the summer as we don't eat a lot of bread in the summer and it's too hot to really be interested in firing up the ovens for bread making. It's been cooler here this week, however, and thoughts of returning to bread baking have been dancing in my mind.
Recently Phyl has been trying out some possible Thanksgiving recipes and he was baking this Fig and Almond Bread, featured on Nick Malgieri's site here (recipe and photo). "Figs and Almonds you say?" That was about how much it took for me to start lining up the ingredients.
Ingredient list: dried Calimyrna figs, almonds, water, yeast, bread flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, olive oil, and butter. I didn't have access to dried Calimyrna figs (a light colored fig), so I subbed in other California figs, the dried Mission figs, but otherwise I made the recipe exactly as written by NM.
Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my is this delicious! It's a savory bread, with a touch of sweetness from the figs and a nice little crunchy texture from the chopped almonds. Trust me, if you like figs and almonds, you should really make this bread as soon as possible. The recipe is straight-forward, just follow each step and it works perfectly.
On his site, NM says this is a recipe that he pulled from his new bread book manuscript...the book is set to publish next fall (2012), so this was sort of a preview for us. If this is any indication, and I am certain it is, of just how wonderful that new book is going to be, stand aside, I'm first in line. Thank you, Nick...another wonderful recipe.
