Delicious fresh fig bread

In an effort to use more figs during this never-ending fig season, I tried a new recipe. Since I love banana bread, I looked for bread recipes that use fresh figs. I found a fig bread recipe on Renee’s Kitchen Adventures. It used almonds so I adapted it to remove the almonds, since I’m not a fan of nuts in baked goods. I also added lemon zest because in the fig crumble cake I like to make, lemon zest makes it awesome.

The fig bread came out delicious, so I’m sharing the recipe of course.

To make 2 loaves, I used:

3 cups all purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 heaping tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1.5 cups unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 cups coarsely chopped brown turkey figs from my tree
Zest of 1 small lemon (next time, I will increase this to 1 small lemon per loaf)
2 additional figs cut into 4 vertical slices to place on top of each loaf before baking, if desired

Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare 2 loaf pans with your favorite method. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour through salt). Beat together eggs, applesauce, oil, vanilla, sour cream, and sugar. Add the dry ingredients in approximately 3 parts and mix just until combined, don’t over mix. Fold in the figs and lemon zest by hand. Divide the batter between the two loaf pans, and place four fig slices on each loaf. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Figs and zest: