tazza te`u biċċa kejk: My Figolla-Making Experience

Yes. It's true. It's definitely been a while. But I promise. I really didn't mean for this to happen!!!!

As cliché as this might sound, these past few days (weeks even) have been quite rushed and my plans on posting about my kitchen-going-ons during the run up to Easter Sunday, sadly, did not really come to life!

Really and truly I still cannot get my head around the fact that Easter comes and goes by so quickly. I mean kids get their two weeks off from school don't they?! Us "adults" have to make do with just three measly days! Sooo not fair!!!

Here's a little question to pick your brains... How many of us Maltesers can honestly say (honestly! hands on your heart!) that there isn't a figolla, or two still lurking around the kitchen, constantly leading us into temptation?!?!

For the benefit of the non-Malteser readers, the figolla (figolli in plural) is a traditional Maltese Easter sweet that is basically a sweet lemony pastry that sandwiches a lovely, moist almond filling. The pastry is cut into a specific shape. It could be anything from a simple heart, fish, bunny rabbit, dove, egg, lamb, cat, duck, butterfly - you name a shape - its probably already been made into a figolla at some point in time :)

Check out this beautiful blog post on figolli by Sweetapolita to understand better what figolli look like :)

The traditional Maltese figolla even got its own day - World Figolli Day was launched in Easter of 2011 by the Nanette from Gourmet Worrier. How cool is that?!

Up until this year, I had never made a figolla. Actually, one doesn't make one figolla. A figolla is born into a family of many! Up until this year I had always watched on, in awe, while my Mum embarked on her figolla-making mission, year in year out!

I often wondered when the time would come for me to roll up my sleeves and make my own. This year it felt like the time was right. So I called up Mum, asked her what needed to be bought and set about preparing to make them.

Mum's figolla recipe is an adaptation of a recipe taken out of my Grandma's ktieb tar-ricetti i.e. cookbook. The original recipe came from a newspaper cutting, probably dating back somewhere to the 1940's!

It's therefore safe to say that it is a thoroughly 'tried and tested' recipe and I was only too happy to try it out because I knew that at the end of the day this little mission of mine was actually also a tribute to my late Nanna Mary :)

Figolla-making is nothing of a hurried affair. They are made in phases.

- Phase 1 consists of preparing the pastry and almond filling. Both are left to chill for a while (possibly overnight), in the fridge.

- Phase 2 is the tricky part - its also fun and back-breaking at the same time - this is the pastry cutting, spreading of filling, followed by more pastry cutting, which is repeated over and over again until you basically run out of both pastry and filling. Then there's the baking; staying close by to the oven, waiting for your golden figolli babies to be ready.

- Phase 3 is the purely fun part - this is the part where you decorate your figolla to your heart's (and imagination's) content! There is literally no limit to how simple or detailed your figolla decoration may be.

In the run-up to Easter, supermarkets start to stock figolli-cutters, in different shapes and sizes, which make it much easier to produce cute and evenly-sized figolli.

As a total figolli-making newbie, I made four medium-sized heart-shaped figolli. Some people will end up making twenty or more figolli.

Figolli make such lovely Easter gifts once decorated and wrapped and there is really nothing nicer than receiving a nice home-made figolla this time of year....

Here's what's needed to make four-medium sized figolli.

For the pastry:

800g self-raising (wheat) flour

275g butter (or margarine)

250g sugar (I used raw cane sugar which worked just fine)

the rind of 2 large lemons

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

For the almond filling:

400g ground blanched almonds

1/2 pint water

150g sugar (once again I used raw cane sugar)

1 tsp almond essence

For decorating:

Good quality dark chocolate

Sprinkles (optional)

Mini Easter eggs, Easter egg halves.....

Anything your heart desires really :)

Phase 1: pastry + almond filling

To make the pastry, first sieve your self-raising flour into a large-ish mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small cubes and work butter into flour until you end up with crumbs basically. Then its time to beat eggs. Into the beaten eggs add the vanilla essence, sugar and lemon rinds. Make a well in the flour/butter crumbs mixture and pour your egg mixture. Using a hand-held mixer or a stand-alone mixer (both with dough attachment) work eggs into crumbs until you end up with your ball of pastry. Kneading time will depend on consistency of your dough. Once finished with the kneading, take your ball of pastry, cover with cling film and place in fridge. I found that refrigerating for 24 hours gave me a ball of pastry that was pretty easy to work with.

To make your almond filling, take a small pot or pan. Mix water and sugar and on a low flame mix until you end up with a clear solution. Take pot off the heat and add almond essence and ground almonds and continue mixing until you end up with a well-combined mixture. Once cool, your almond filling is ready to be used. In my case I had prepared both pastry and almond filling a day before using them so I ended up leaving filling in the fridge overnight.

Phase 2: pastry-cutting, filling and more pastry-cutting!

The actual figolli-making process can be a sticky/messy one! So its best to clear an adequate working space. I chose to work directly on baking paper which helped reduce the amount of "pastry-sticking". Laying your pastry shapes directly on baking paper really helps to keep shape intact.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

On a floured surface, using a well-floured rolling pin, open up your pastry (to about 0.5cm thickness) and with a figolli-cutter, cut out your shape.

Place your shape on baking paper (or silicone baking mat) and proceed to spreading a good amount of almond filling, leaving a 1cm clear edge which you then moisten with some water.

You then cut out an equal piece of pastry and gently place on top of the almond filling. Gently press the edges together and using a fork make little pricks all the way around the edges of the figolla.

Now pick up your figolla (by holding from the edges of the baking paper or silicone baking mat) and bake for around 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye out because you might need to turn it around so that it gets evenly baked. This is especially the case with fan-assisted ovens.

I baked my figolli two at a time, so I had to swap positions in the oven half-way through baking time.

Try not to let your figolli brown too much. They only need to become golden in colour.

Phase 3: the fun part!

Once your figolli are baked and completely cooled, you can decorate them. Many decorate their figolli using royal icing or glace icing. I'm a chocolate lover so I decorated mine with melted dark chocolate and sprinkles.

My four figolli pre-decoration. You will notice a broken heart. That broken heart literally broke my heart too ... as well as causing me a nice oven burn on my hand :)

If you're going for chocolate-covered figolli then you need to melt your chocolate the bain-marie way. You basically take a small pot, fill with some water and warm up. In a bowl that fits atop the water-filled pot, you break up your chocolate. You need to make sure that the water bubbling away in the pot never comes in contact with the bowl containing the chocolate otherwise your chocolate will burn up. And in doing so you would have committed one of the deadly sins i.e. wasting of chocolate - always a big no no :)

Armed with your melted chocolate, you just need to spread it evenly on your figolli, and before the chocolate cools/hardens you can decorate using any kind of sprinkles or whatever tickles your fancy :)

My reward :)

Some tips: your figolli will need to be supported on a plate, or a cake board or something hard and steady - otherwise you may end up with a broken figolla - which is still tasty but maybe not as visually appealing, especially if you're planning to give them away :)

You also need to keep them covered. You can use cling film, baking paper, brown paper, anything really.

Oh, one last thing, we like to keep our figolli in the fridge. They keep for days, even weeks (tried and tested).