Close up shot of poached peach half and halved figs, caramelized and served with nut crumb and icecream. Image and recipe: Su Leslie, 2016

Caramelized peach and fig with hazelnut crumb and ice-cream. Recipe and image: Su Leslie, 2016

I hadn’t intended to post another recipe for Cardinal Guzman’s Changing Seasons challenge, but this one arrived — fully formed — at precisely 3.18 this morning (I checked). As I’m not often woken by ideas this tasty, it seemed silly not to make the dish and share the photo.

Golden Queen peaches and figs are both in season here, and while I have to buy the peaches, I’m lucky enough to have a fig tree that is bearing about four fruit a day at the moment.

Golden Queen peach half and home-grown fig. Dessert in the making. Image: Su Leslie, 2016.

Golden Queen peach half and home-grown fig. Dessert in the making. Image: Su Leslie, 2016.

I poached both the peach half and the fig halves in a syrup flavoured with stem ginger and lemon jest, then popped the peach — cut-side down — in a frying pan to caramelize it. If I were making this as a proper dessert (rather than an experiment), I would roast the peaches to soften and caramelize them in the same process.

The crumb topping was made of finely chopped hazelnuts toasted in a frying pan with a bit of butter.

The icecream was Kapiti vanilla bean.

The Big T was my (surprisingly willing) taster, pronouncing it pretty yummy. Since I asked for constructive feedback, he said the poaching syrup needed more ginger and the crumb a bit more flavour.

I’m working on MK #2 for the boy-child to try later.

The Changing Seasons is a monthly challenge hosted by Cardinal Guzman. There are two versions:

 Version 1 (The Changing Seasons V1):

  • Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
  • Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery.
  • Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.

Version 2 (The Changing Seasons V2):

  • Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
  • Each month, post one photo (recipe, painting, drawing, whatever) that represents your interpretation of the month.
  • Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!

The Changing Seasons: autumn on a plate

/ Su Leslie / 34 Comments

34 thoughts on “The Changing Seasons: autumn on a plate”

  2. Pingback: The Changing Seasons: March 2016 – Cardinal Guzman

  5. Oh, yum. I am currently battling the dreaded lurgi and I wish someone was here to make me something comforting like that. (Unfortunately, the resident comforter is the one who is sick.) Looks, soooo good. You have great ideas at 3.18am!

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  10. You and I think of very different things at 3’ish in the morning 😉 … cooking is NEVER on my mind at that hour!!
    It looks absolutely delicious. It looks like perfect breakfast food to me 😉
    Oh come on – don’t look at me like that. You’ve had to have had ice cream for breakfast before!

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    • Thank you 🙂
      I think about food ALL the time, so the real surprise is how come I don’t have recipe ideas in my sleep more often!
      And yeah, definitely breakfast food. That was a variation I did think about. I figured I could poach the fruit in orange juice instead of syrup and add some seeds to the crumb so it was more like granola. But I’d need to have it with yogurt instead of ice-cream. Ddespite my love of most things dairy, I don’t really like ice-cream much. Unlike The Big T!
      He and a Czech friend had ice-cream and beer for breakfast once. That was enough to put me off for ever.

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          • My husband doesn’t like anything with coconut so it rarely makes an appearance in our home. He even once objected to a coconut scented body wash and refused to use it.
            On those rare occasions I buy anything with coconut, I know it will be my private stash 😉

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          • Actually, I get that. I don’t like coconut scented lotions and feel slightly ill at the smell of hot coconut oil. But for some reason, the ice-cream works; probably because the flavours mask the coconut. And I do use a lot of coconut cream/milk in cooking — Thai curries being just about my fav. foods.

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          • I wonder if I could get away with using coconut milk in my cooking. I’ll have to take it for a test drive and see if it passes.
            He’s actually a very adventurous eater, except for coconut. I can’t really complain.

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          • That might work. In curries it doesn’t taste coconut-y. I think most of us have food we don’t like, or even ways of preparing foods that make them taste wrong to us. I love avocado, unless it’s heated up/cooked; then I find the taste unbearable.

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    • I am feeling very lucky. I’m still harvesting a few a day. The fig/cheese (blue cheese preferably) combo is definitely a winning one. Actually, I like peaches and cheese too, but I love experimenting with dessert recipes — something my boys heartily approve of.

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  13. Pingback: The Changing Seasons Recap 2016 | Cardinal Guzman

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